Iconoclash / Architecture and Monument After 2020

Five pre-Great Depression era bank buildings in New York are examined in regard to their empty monumentality. Once representing the libertarian capitalist ambitions of the 'Gilded Age', today these buildings house mundane programs (like CVS) behind their classical facades. In a time where the meaning of images is under heightened scrutiny these former bank buildings pose a particularly interesting dilemma. What do they signify for contemporary culture? What to do with them?