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Chinatown
Bowery Savings Bank
The Bowery Savings Bank opened in 1834 at the site of what is now 128-130 Bowery in Manhattan. By 1980 it had over 35 branches located in the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, as well as Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island. When bank deregulation was enacted the bank began to suffer losses as a result of rising savings account interest rates. By 1982 the bank was running out of cash; in 1985 the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) arranged for the bank to be sold to Richard Ravitch and others. It was sold for $100 million and allowed to maintain a capital deficit of $220 million rather than pay out on the $5 billion in deposits. In 1992 it was sold to H. F. Ahmanson & Co for $200 million. The name was changed by 1992 to Home Savings of America. In 1995, Ahmanson sold their New York operations to Greenpoint Savings Bank. By 2004 Greenpoint had been sold to North Fork Bank, and in 2007 North Fork was sold to Capital One Bank. From 1972 to 1992, baseball Hall-of-Famer Joe DiMaggio was spokesman for the Bowery Savings Bank.
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