An interesting record of early rental values is found in the original minute book of the Bank.

The Bank's offices in the basement of the Sherwood House were secured "at a rental of two thousand six hundred dollars per year, said rental to include the gas used and the heating of the rooms." There have been but four transfers of the corner upon which the Bank now stands at Fifth Avenue and Forty-fourth Street since Peter Minuit, in 1626, bought the island from the Indians for a handful of trinkets.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE PUBLIC LIBRARY.

THE LIBRARY, 590 FEET LONG AND 270 FEET DEEP, WAS BUILT BY THE CITY AT A COST OF ABOUT NINE MILLION DOLLARS.

THE MATERIAL IS LARGELY VERMONT MARBLE, AND THE STYLE THAT OF THE MODERN RENAISSANCE] Despite the invasion of business there are many houses in this stretch of the Avenue that recall the tradition and flavour of the older New York.

Between Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth, Nos.