Constructed for the defunct New York Savings Bank from 1896 to 1898, it occupies an L-shaped site on 81 Eighth Avenue, at the northwestern corner with 14th Street.

The New York Savings Bank Building was designed by Robert Henderson Robertson, with later additions by George H. Provot and Halsey, McCormack & Helmer.

As the New York Savings Bank continued to expand, Provot redesigned the main facade on Eighth Avenue in 1930.

[4][5] The New York Savings Bank Building, completed in 1897, was originally designed in the neoclassical style by Robert Henderson Robertson.

[6][7] The exterior of the building features porticos and a dome inspired by those of ancient Roman temples, while the interior has an expansive vaulted ceiling that was intended to attract depositors.

[8] George H. Provot modified the main entrance in 1930, while the firm of Halsey, McCormack & Helmer designed a now-demolished annex to the north in 1940.

[10][11] The marble ashlar cladding is about 4 inches (100 mm) thick, behind which are exterior brick walls laid in cement-and-lime mortar.

[13] Beneath the western section's westernmost window, a flight of six steps leads to a rear doorway, topped by a lintel with acroteria.

[17] The building's banking room along 14th Street has a gabled roof, which is made of terracotta brick above steel rafters and is covered with copper sheeting.

The lowest section is the parapet, which consists of a pair of crescents (one each to the north and south), formed by the intersection of the sloping gables below and the clerestory above.

[22] The banking room's ceiling is coffered and contains a transverse rib, which is supported by an engaged column on the north and south walls.

[24] The west wall is also clad with travertine above marble and is decorated only with a circular bronze clock face, inset within a square.

The spandrels at each corner of the square contain anthemia, and the clock hands and Roman numerals are attached to the travertine wall.

[32] Development began to spread northward from Lower Manhattan to 14th Street after the American Civil War, and the New York Savings Bank correspondingly saw a large increase in business.

[33][34] The bank received a construction permit that month; records show that Otto M. Eidlitz was the mason and that S. W. McGuire was the carpenter.

[35] The new building was erected in two phases, allowing the bank to continue operating; the administrative offices to the west were finished first, while the public rooms to the east were completed afterward.

[14][18] The new building was to advertise the bank's presence to customers in Chelsea and Greenwich Village, as well as those working in the nearby Meatpacking District and on the Hudson River shoreline.

[43][44] To accommodate its expanded operations, the New York Savings Bank hired Adolf L. Muller[b] of Halsey, McCormack & Helmer in 1940 to design a limestone-faced annex[21] north of the building.

[8][45] Muller submitted plans for the annex to the DOB in November 1940, and workers began razing a pair of four-story buildings at 85 and 87 Eighth Avenue the next month.

[52] The same month, Muller filed plans to remove the restrooms, replace the entrance vestibule, and reconfigure the northern portion of the banking room.

[18] However, documents filed in May 1987 indicated that a 32-story residential tower could be erected on the bank's site using air rights from the building at 85 Eighth Avenue.

Three days later, Landmark Realty removed some of the stained-glass windows and bronze decorations,[18] prompting a member of a local preservation group to say that the building "has been vandalized by the owner".

[65][69] Central Carpet's owner Ike Timianko had been searching for store locations for seven years before seeing the former bank building while driving through the neighborhood.

[65][70] The president of the Preservation League of New York State said the bank building's conversion into a carpet store was "better than being demolished".

The success of the Central Carpet store in the former bank building prompted Timianko to close his original location on the Upper West Side.

[1] Businessman Mark Ordan announced in 2004 that he would open a Balducci's gourmet market on two floors of 81 Eighth Avenue, which was still occupied by Central Carpet at the time.

[75] Balducci's proposed removing an interior partition dating from 1952, as well as rebuilding a set of entrances on Eighth Avenue that had been destroyed in 1930; the latter modification would make the building accessible to disabled customers.

[76] The Balducci's market at 81 Eighth Avenue opened in December 2005[77] and closed suddenly in April 2009 following a company-wide "restructuring".

[18][81] Schuyler wrote: "The portico, taken by itself, is an 'example', but the longer side lacks not only formal symmetry, but artistic balance, and the skylighted dome does not so dominate the building as to account for and justify the transeptual arrangement.

[7] The historian Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel wrote in 2011 that the building was "a fine example of the classical style popularized by the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago".