It was built in 1888–1889 as a speculative development and was designed by Francis H. Kimball in the Romanesque Revival style with French Gothic detailing.

The building was named for Austin Corbin, a president of the Long Island Rail Road who also founded several banks.

Structurally, it preceded the use of steel skeletons for skyscrapers, utilizing cast-iron beams and masonry walls that were load-bearing.

It was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on December 18, 2003, and designated a New York City Landmark on June 23, 2015.

[9] Most of the building is eight stories high, but there are two single-story towers with pyramidal roofs on the extreme western and eastern ends.

[9] Guastavino tile was utilized on the ceilings, roof, and floors to provide extra fireproofing, and the Corbin Building was supposedly the city's first structure to use such technology.

[14] Because the internal structure was not completely made of steel, skyscrapers of the 1880s such as the Corbin Building were generally limited to ten stories.

[8][19] The fifth and sixth floors of the end bays consist of a pair of double arches with ornate terracotta surrounds and spandrels.

[21] At ground level, the main entrance to the building is on the second bay from the east, and is recessed within a decorative round arch.

[22] The other bays contain a steel-and-glass enclosure with doors leading inside to a set of escalators, which in turn connect to the Fulton Center.

[8][24] The interior space is relatively narrow compared to other Financial District buildings, being 46 feet (14 m) wide at its widest point.

[25] There was a light court within the Corbin Building that illuminated the second through eighth stories, and has a large open staircase with wooden handrails, metal as well as railing panels and corner posts.

[9][26] Girders were attached to metal columns between the first-floor ceiling and the building's roof, forming the light court.

[30] Corbin wished to design a building on the property, which would house his banking firm, with extra space left over for him to rent out.

[9][33][26] Kimball's design for the Corbin Building was influenced by his previous experience in the usage of terracotta decorative elements, such as at the Casino Theatre.

[4] The building was rehabilitated as part of the Fulton Center project, with Judlau Contracting as main contractors, Page Ayres Cowley Architects as sub-consultants, and Arup Group as designer.

[47][48] The ground and basement levels of the building were incorporated into the Fulton Center, serving as an entrance to the subway station below.

[23][27] Foundation work uncovered a well lined with stone, which contained artifacts dating to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as newspapers from 1889, an invoice for a jewelry company, and handwritten accounts of stock trades.

[55] Architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler also negatively viewed Kimball's division of the Corbin Building's facade into two sections.

However, Schuyler said that the contrast between the brownstone base and the brick-and-terracotta upper stories helped unite the two sections, and also praised the Broadway pavilion "work[ing] out naturally and effectively into a tower".

[57] Architectural writers Sarah Landau and Carl Condit wrote in 1996 that the building exhibited "fine detail and slablike proportions".

[42] After the demolition of other structures nearby in the early 20th century, the fifth edition of the AIA Guide to New York City (2010) called the Corbin Building "a slender book-end at the corner, with no books to hold up".