FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF CVS?

I was up at the corner of Amsterdam and 96th St., not an area I frequent, when I saw a very handsome building with three story columns flanking similar height windows--and noticed it was a CVS Pharmacy. A very impressive building for a drugstore, I remarked to my companions.

Of course it wasn't built for CVS. A close inspection of a copper plaque near the roofline disclosed that this was originally an East River Savings Bank.

Banks used to build such structures so people would be assured their money was in a safe, solid institution. Today people realize their bank deposits are just electronic entries in some computer, and seldom even see their bank, unless they go there to use the ATM. Now the banks are grabbing storefronts left and right, so people don't have to go more than a couple blocks to do their banking--at least the part they can't do from their home computers.

So the banks have gotten rid of a lot of their big, solid, expensive, obsolete buildings--with all the bank mergers, there were a lot of unnecessary branches anyhow. This one became a drugstore, with a private school upstairs. The East River Savings Bank across from the World Trade Center became part of the Century 21 Department Store. A former New York Savings Bank with a huge dome is becoming the new Balducci's gourmet market--after being a carpet store for a while. And the original Bowery Savings Bank, designed by Stanford White, is now a catering hall.

Even smaller bank locations change functions. I get my menswear from Rothman's on Union Square, which features a number of former banks. I am always amused by the fact that the changing rooms are the little rooms people used to look at their safe deposit boxes in--and the expensive Hickey-Freeman suits are kept in the safe, with its 18" thick door! My wife now shops where she used to have a safe deposit box--the former Manufacturers Hanover branch is now a Gap store--though it still has the original magnificent bronze entryway.

A quick Google showed I wasn't the first person to notice this trend. But it always seems a bit sad to me to see one of these monumental edifices put to such mundane uses.