Dime Savings and Trust Company

About this property

The Dime Savings and Trust Company, also known as the First Valley Bank, is an historic bank building located in Allentown, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1925, and is a T-shaped, five-story red brick building. The base is sheathed in limestone, and the distinctive brick and limestone attic level is reflective of the Art Deco style. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. Drawing on the name of a bank from the 1840s, the Dime Savings and Trust Company was founded in 1921 as the fifth-largest bank in Allentown. Dime Savings building was one of three principal buildings in Allentown's central business district; the other two were Americus Hotel and the PPL Building, all which were all built in the same two-year span and reflected the Art Deco design trends then popular in Allentown and the New York City regions. The interior main banking room is one of the best-preserved monumental banking rooms of its day in the Allentown region. Occupying the full width of the front wing, it extends back beyond the elevator core. At the rear, it is spanned by a balcony that marks the full two stories of the room, which is accented by a blind niche framed by engaged piers and consoles. The room itself is surrounded by a deep, dentelle cornice, similar to that of the exterior, which, with the arcaded walls, completes the sense of a monumental masonry space that was common to major banks of the era. In addition, a pair of handsome Art Deco bronze chandeliers with fluted sides are suspended from the ceiling at each end of the room. At the start of the Great Depression in 1930, the bank was one of the largest in the city; by 1932, however, it had failed, leaving only its building as a reminder of its former success. After the bank's failure, the Dime Savings and Trust Company building spent most of its existence vacant while a series of owners tried and failed to find ways to use it. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, the monumental first floor room was renovated in 1991 by a private owner, who was subsequently recognized by city leaders for his restoration efforts. It housed an antique market for a few years and survived the catastrophic sinkhole-caused collapse of its adjacent neighbor Corporate Plaza (22 North Seventh Street) on February 23, 1994. Ownership has changed hands several times, but the building remained vacant. Owned for a time by developer Abe Atiyeh, it was put it up for auction on eBay in 2001. In 2004, a Philadelphia-based creator of upscale furniture purchased it, planning a combination restaurant and furniture showroom, but those plans were abandoned in 2007.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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