200 Vesey Street, formerly known as Three World Financial Center and also known as the American Express Tower, is one of four towers that comprise the Brookfield Place complex in the Battery Park City, directly adjacent to the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Rising 51 floors and 739 ft, it is situated between the Hudson River and the World Trade Center. The building opened in 1986 as part of the World Financial Center and was designed by Haines Lundberg Waehler and Cesar Pelli & Associates.
Description
The building is an example of postmodern architecture, as designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates, and contains over 2.1 million square feet (195,000 m2) of rentable office area. It connects to the rest of the World Financial Center complex through a courtyard leading to the Winter Garden, a dramatic glass-and-steel public space with a 120 ft (37 m) vaulted ceiling under which there is an assortment of trees and plants, including sixteen 40 ft (12 m) palm trees from the Mojave Desert. Pelli used the building's basic aesthetic again for the One Canada Square tower in London's Canary Wharf development. Canary Wharf was, like the World Financial Center, a project by Canadian developers Olympia & York, and One Canada Square was designed by the same principal architect.