If 1 CM Plaza typifies gossamer modernity, its neighbor represents the weighty historicism in vogue in the days before the Stock Market Crash of 1929. York & Sawyer turned to the fortified palaces of the Renaissance bankers of Florence for inspiration for this design. The fortress-like character is appropriate, as the Federal Reserve houses the world's largest concentration of gold bullion in its basement vaults. The elaborately wrought iron lamps flanking the main doorway on Liberty Street are the work of Samuel Yellin, the most noted artist of wrought iron of the twentieth century.