text: Up to 1,800 workers were employed at any given time. Foundation work took place between March 1957 and November 1958. The first of the steel assemblies, upon which each of the 40 structural-steel columns would be placed, was installed within the foundation in September 1958. Afterward, steel work commenced in December 1958. The final piece of steel was installed during a topping out ceremony on September 9, 1959. At that point, the building was planned to be finished in 1960, and the plaza was to be opened in 1962. This was followed by the completion of the curtain wall in March 1960.
  Completion was initially anticipated for 1959, but four citywide strikes of construction workers, including an 18-week elevator worker strike, delayed construction. Furthermore, a crane operator died in a June 1958 construction accident. By December 1960, the tower was completed, and Chase Manhattan Bank employees began moving in to the new tower the next month. Chase Manhattan opened a temporary office within the tower while the plaza and basements were under construction. The official opening was held on May 28, 1961; the southern block had not been cleared at the time of the tower's opening, and the only progress on that block was a group of nine trees that had been planted on Nassau Street. The plaza was completed in December 1963, and the permanent banking office underneath it opened the next month, after which the temporary office was turned into an auditorium. The plaza's official opening was celebrated with a party in May 1964. The structure cost $138 million in total, including the plaza.
  Chase Bank ownership