If you ever stop in to make a transaction at the Chase Bank on Grand Avenue at the corner of 66th Street, you have entered what might just be the longest operating business in town. Originally this location was a branch of the Bank of Manhattan, founded in 1799 by Aaron Burr. Burr started peddling the idea of founding a private waterworks called the Manhattan Company to get approval from the city and state to incorporate. After that was achieved, his real plan was put into motion. Burr executed a switcheroo, and the Manhattan Company was opened as a bank to compete with the Alexander Hamilton-founded Bank of New York. These two had long standing issues, and we all know how that ended. In 1955, Bank of Manhattan merged with Chase National Bank, which was founded in 1877.

The original Maspeth bank building, constructed in 1931 per DOB records, had a red brick exterior with white trim. Along the side, under the Chase logo, “1799” can still be made out as the date of BoM’s founding. Today the building is painted white, and has been modernized with an awning and a ramp. It also sports the famous blue Chase logo, which according to graphic design historians, is meant to be a stylized representation of the cross-section of an 18th century wooden water pipe, in homage to the company’s origins.