3. The Development of Air Travel in the United States Can Be Traced to 40 Wall Street

 1923 Bromley Manhattan land book of the city of New York via NYPL.

According to Anthony C. Sutton in Wall Street and FDR: The true story of how Franklin D. Roosevelt colluded with Corporate America, the ban against Germany to construct airships after World War I opened possibility for United States companies to take the lead, using patents seized by the US government in 1917 under the “Trading with the Enemy Act.”

One of the firms interested in developing air transportation was S.R. Bertron, of Bertron, Griscom & Co, based in 40 Wall Street (the building before this version). Bertron sent President Franklin D. Roosevelt a letter in 1921 and the two met in New York City, leading to a contract later that year known as the Hardesty-Owen-Bertron agreement that “planned the road to development of commercial airship operations in the U.S.,” writes Sutton.