In the building's first few months, the elevators were involved in at least two deaths: that of a painter on May 4, and that of a plumber's assistant on July 24. In a publicity stunt in 1911, the aviator Harry Atwood flew around the Singer Building. The expanded building's tenants included the Chatham and Phenix National Bank, whose main office moved to the Singer Building in 1916. The Safe Deposit Company of New York originally used the vaults. The power source for the building's steam plant was converted from coal to oil in 1921, making the Singer Building the city's first office building to use oil as a fuel.