Shortly after groundbreaking, Chase Manhattan Bank signed a 30-year, $200 million lease for of space across 22 floors in the building. Investment bank Salomon Brothers was another early tenants, moving into the building in 1970. On August 5, 1970, the building suffered a fire in which two people were killed and 35 injured. The deaths were caused after an occupied elevator was "summoned" to the burning floor when one of the thermally-activated call buttons—designed to react to a warm finger tapping it—reacted instead to the heat of the fire on that floor.