Description

The Lafayette Building was the home of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), an important funding agency created by Herbert Hoover in 1932 and then greatly expanded by Franklin Roosevelt during the New Deal years.  The RFC held an important financial role in America all the way through World War II

The Lafayette Building was built in 1939-1940 with private funding, through a newly-created Lafayette Building Corporation (LBC). However, the RFC “was directly involved in planning the building that would be their headquarters… [and] The RFC Mortgage Company purchased the Lafayette Building Corporation’s outstanding stock on April 16, 1941, and a month later it took over all of LBC’s assets” (National Historic Landmark Nomination, 2005).

Another of the original tenants of the Lafayette Building, the Export-Import Bank (created in 1934), still resides in the building today.

The Lafayette Building is a National Historic Landmark.