Tag Archives: commercial

Knox Building

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The Knox Building is a landmark 10-story Beaux Arts commercial building, wrapped by the modern 29-story HSBC Tower. Both have ties to 19th-Century personalities.

Civil War hero Edward Knox took over his father’s ailing hat business and pledged to make the Knox name known wherever hats were sold. The Knox Hat Building on Fifth Avenue was part of the route taken. Knox, active in veterans’ affairs, met architect John H. Duncan and was impressed by his designs of the Grand Army Plaza Memorial Arch and the General Grant National Memorial (Grant’s Tomb). Knox subsequently commissioned Duncan to build his newest store and company headquarters.

In 1964 Republic National Bank bought the building and converted it to banking, making relatively few exterior changes (though they did remove the mezzanine). Then in 1985 Republic wrapped a 29-story L-shaped tower around the Knox Building. HSBC acquired Republic, and in 2006 made additional restorations and renovations to the structures.

The artfully done tower (Eli Attia, architect) comes off as a drape backdrop for the Beaux Arts Knox Building. The art came at the expense of the Kress Building, which many preservationists wanted to save from demolition.

HSBC Tower preserves some history that predates the Kress Building, though. In the middle of the Fifth Avenue facade a bronze door memorializes the site of an 1850s “House of Mystery.” That mansion was owned by the Wendel family until the last daughter, Ella, died in 1931 at age 78.

The five-story red brick home was said to be the last residence on that stretch of Fifth, an eccentric home to an eccentric and very wealthy family.

When Ella died, the estate reportedly took 10 years, 250 lawyers and $2 million to settle – there were no less than 2,300 individuals claiming to be heirs.

Drew University was among the beneficiaries of Ella’s will: They received, then sold, the mansion, and a Kress Department Store was built on the site.

Knox Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 452 Fifth Avenue at W 40th Street
  • Year completed: 1902
  • Architect: John H. Duncan
  • Floors: 10
  • Style: Beaux Arts
  • New York City Landmark: 1980
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1982
HSBC Tower Vital Statistics
  • Location: 452 Fifth Avenue at W 40th Street
  • Year completed: 1985
  • Architect: Eli Attia
  • Floors: 29
  • Style: Postmodern
Knox Building / HSBC Tower Recommended Reading

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Madison Belmont Building

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The Madison Belmont Building was a prominent addition to the young “Silk District,” commercial buildings serving the silk industry that replaced the mansions of uptown-bound wealthy New Yorkers. It was among the first in the U.S. to use Art Deco design elements, according to the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission. The overall design, however, was traditional. Like other tall buildings of the time, the Madison Belmont Building had a base – shaft – capital organization mimicking a classical column.

Although architect Whitney Warren had been exposed to Art Deco concepts while in Paris, it appears that prime tenant Cheney Silk Company also influenced the design. The company had a relationship with Edgar Brandt, a pioneer of the Art Deco style in Paris. Warren picked Brandt to design the iron and bronze framing around the showroom windows of the lower three floors, as well as the entrance doors and grilles.

The white 18th floor was added in 1953 – 29 years after the original construction.

Despite the Madison Belmont Building’s pioneering role, architects Warren & Wetmore are better known for their neo-Renaissance and Beaux Arts works, such as the New York Yacht Club, Grand Central Terminal, New York Central Building (aka Helmsley Building), Steinway Hall, Aeolian, and Heckscher Building (aka Crown Building).

Madison Belmont Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 181 Madison Avenue at E 34th Street
  • Year completed: 1925
  • Architect: Warren & Wetmore
  • Floors: 18
  • Style: neo-Renaissance, with Art Deco decoration
  • New York City Landmark: 2011
Madison Belmont Building Recommended Reading

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261 Fifth Avenue

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261 Fifth Avenue replaced six houses from the mid-1800s; it was used primarily as showrooms and offices of companies in the housewares and carpet industries, according to the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission.

The commission also notes that the striking bold terra cotta ornament used by architect Ely Jacques Kahn had “similarities to motifs used by Frank Lloyd Wright.” Which leads to a small bit of irony: Frank Lloyd Wright was the inspiration for Howard Roark, the hero architect in Ayn Rand’s novel “Fountainhead.” But Ayn Rand worked for Kahn (as an unpaid typist) while she was researching the book; she is quoted as saying of Kahn, “As a type, he was Guy Francon.” (Francon was a sycophant in the novel.)

261 Fifth Avenue Vital Statistics
  • Location: 261 Fifth Avenue at E 29th Street
  • Year completed: 1929
  • Architect: Buchman & Kahn
  • Floors: 26
  • Style: Art Deco
  • New York City Landmark: 2001
261 Fifth Avenue Recommended Reading

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Port of New York Grain Terminal

Brooklyn, , , , , , ,

The Port of New York Grain Terminal, the “Magnificent Mistake” in Red Hook, Brooklyn, has been shut since 1965 and is slowly crumbling into the Gowanus Canal. The ruins are now privately owned, apparently used only as a photo/movie backdrop.

The silos were built by the State of New York in 1922 in an attempt to revive Erie Canal traffic: Midwest grain could travel by barge through the Great Lakes, Erie Canal and Hudson River to this terminal, for onward shipment and/or local consumption. Unfortunately, New York’s labor costs drove the traffic to other ports.

Meanwhile, the site has become a challenge course for graffiti artists and photographers: The building is guarded on the north and west by a 12-foot concrete wall and chain link fence; on the east and south by the Gowanus Canal. I got my closeups by accident: The guard apparently went to get his lunch, leaving the gate wide open, when I wandered by. I spent a half hour shooting the grounds unchallenged. When I left, the guard had returned – and was furious. I suspect that the only reason I didn’t get in trouble is that he’d have more explaining to do than I would.

Port of New York Grain Terminal Vital Statistics
  • Location: Columbia Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
  • Year completed: 1922
  • Architect: ?
  • Style: Brutalist
Port of New York Grain Terminal Recommended Reading

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Fashion Center Building

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Fashion Center Building, in the words of The New York Times, “is hardly a traffic-stopping landmark.” But its entrance and its terra cotta decoration are noteworthy – someone was paying attention to details.

The Seventh Avenue entrance was restored in 1994 to close to its original state – the ornate wrought iron grill had been removed and the vestibule had been enclosed with a line of modern doors. The restoration architect, George Ranalli, added modern touches in the floor, lighting and lobby desk, but otherwise preserved the spirit of the original.

Fashion Center Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 525 Seventh Avenue at W 38th Street
  • Year completed: 1922
  • Architect: Henry Ives Cobb
  • Floors: 22
  • Style: Romanesque Revival
Fashion Center Building Recommended Reading

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Langham Place

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Langham Place (formerly Setai Fifth Avenue) is a towering grid of limestone, concrete and glass with emphatic vertical lines that mimic the nearby Empire State Building.

The 57-story building is a mix of retail (floors 1-3), 214-room hotel (4-26), and 164 condominium apartments (28-56). The 10-story limestone base has a rounded corner; a 46-story sheer concrete tower sits atop that. Unusual floor-to-ceiling windows – two panes angled with the bottom pane facing down, top pane facing up – are paired in columns all around. On the residential floors, corner apartments have wrap-around windows. The windows give Langham Place’s facade a unique faceted texture – quite striking from nearby.

The two-story flared stainless steel crown hides water tanks and other mechanical details, and elevator machinery. The crown is illuminated at night.

Among other notable projects in New York City, Gwathmey Siegel & Associates designed the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, W New York Downtown, and Astor Place Tower.

Langham Place Vital Statistics
  • Location: 400 Fifth Avenue at W 36th Street
  • Year completed: 2010
  • Architect: Gwathmey Siegel & Associates
  • Floors: 57
  • Style: Postmodern
Langham Place Recommended Reading

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275 Madison Avenue

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275 Madison Avenue (originally known as 22 E 40th Street) is an Art Deco landmark in midtown Manhattan. Its polished black granite and silver base continues to be a striking presence more than three quarters of a century after construction. (If only mere mortals had such staying power!)

In contrast to other commercial buildings of the day, 275 Madison had almost no decoration above the base. The tower was promoted as a “shadowless” skyscraper (because there were no projecting cornices, sculptures or other features to cast shadows), though some critics say the lack of ornament was simply a cost-saving measure dictated by the stock market crash. The building’s vertical lines are accentuated by dark columns of windows against a white-brick background.

Architect Kenneth Franzheim is best known for his work in Houston, for Houston-based developer Jesse Jones. It was Jones’ New York-based firm, Houston Properties Corporation, that developed 275 Madison Avenue with New York Trust as the prime tenant. (The bank owned two of the five lots used to build the tower.) In 1933, Johns-Manville Corporation leased 14 floors, so the structure is sometimes called the Johns-Manville Building. However, Johns-Manville already had its own building a block away, on Madison Avenue at E 41st Street.

Despite 275 Madison Avenue’s address, the tower’s main entrance is actually on E 40th Street – and the building was originally known as 22 E 40th Street.

At this writing, 275 Madison Ave. is owned by RFR Realty.

275 Madison Avenue Vital Statistics
  • Location: 275 Madison Avenue at E 40th Street
  • Year completed: 1931
  • Architect: Kenneth Franzheim
  • Floors: 43
  • Style: Art Deco
  • New York City Landmark: 2009
275 Madison Avenue Recommended Reading

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Stewart Building

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Stewart Building, in the shadow of Langham Place, narrowly missed being under an office tower; landmark designation saved it, and the Wedgewood-like terra cotta still owns the corner of Fifth Avenue and W 37th Street.

(See The 1914 Stewart Building; A Delicate Work of Ceramic in the Path of a Tower for the full story.)

Architecturally, the Stewart Building’s claim to fame is the unusual mix of Chicago School style and neo-Classical design. The neo-Classical side brings the building’s blue-gray terra cotta cladding. The Chicago Style attributes include the three-part “Chicago Windows,” steel frame, and base-shaft-crown vertical design.

The Stewart Building was originally owned by Robert Walton Goelet – part of one of New York’s wealthiest families, with real estate holdings second only to the Astor family. Architects Warren & Wetmore also designed New York landmarks New York Central Building (aka Helmsley Building), the Heckscher Building, and Steinway Hall, among others. The builder was the George A. Fuller Company, which built thousands of buildings in New York and elsewhere – including the Plaza Hotel, United Nations headquarters, Lever House and Seagram Building.

Stewart Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 402-404 Fifth Avenue at W 37th Street
  • Year completed: 1915
  • Architect: Warren & Wetmore
  • Floors: 8
  • Style: neo-Classical
  • New York City Landmark: 2006
Stewart Building Recommended Reading

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1407 Broadway

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1407 Broadway “is the dashingly inventive 1407 Broadway, from 38th to 39th Streets, built in 1950. Strip windows punctuate this intelligent, angular structure, and the green brick and rich red window framing make it an oasis in the near desert of early postwar architecture,” Christopher Gray wrote in The New York Times.

The building’s International style design is certainly a bright, colorful contrast with the Garment District’s 1930s loft buildings in Renaissance or Romanesque Revival style. 1407 Broadway also stands out because the tower is aligned with the Manhattan street grid, instead of with Broadway. The Plaza in front of 1411 Broadway (on the block north of 1407) makes the view from uptown particularly striking.

Though some have tried to get NYC Landmark status for 1407 Broadway, that hasn’t happened, yet.

1407 Broadway Vital Statistics
  • Location: 1407 Broadway between W 38th and W 39th Streets (W 39th Street wing extends to 7th Avenue)
  • Year completed: 1950
  • Architect: Ely Jacques Kahn
  • Floors: 42
  • Style: International
1407 Broadway Recommended Reading

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300 Madison Avenue

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300 Madison Avenue is the boxy glass and steel tower on 42nd Street whose mirrored facade is scored with steel fins. But it’s what’s under the skin that’s innovative.

Excavation was already under way when two events dictated radical design changes: 9/11, and the space requirements of Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), which leased two-thirds of the building from prime tenant Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) World Market.

The owners, Brookfield Financial Properties, decided to harden the design to withstand catastrophic damage, and at the same time create large trading floors in the eight-story base for PWC. Oh, and by the way, while making the building stronger, could you remove one of the columns? Adding to the challenge, the redesign and construction had to stay within the original schedule: Move-in dates were fixed.

Engineers added bracing, used stronger steel beams, replaced some sheetrock walls with concrete, and beefed up fireproofing. Firefighting systems got additional high-capacity water tanks and sprinkler lines. The owners strengthened the electrical system with addition of backup generators. (See the Recommended Reading for details – this building is unusually well documented.)

None of this is obvious from street level. Instead, the mirror glass facade is a pleasing surprise: It makes surrounding buildings more visible, by increasing their apparent distance from the viewer. The upper floors’ fins and alternating bands of glass and steel create interesting patterns, especially because the fins vary in size. The fins save it from being Just Another Glass Box.

300 Madison Avenue Vital Statistics
  • Location: 300 Madison Avenue between E 41st and E 42nd Streets
  • Year completed: 2003
  • Architect: Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM)
  • Floors: 35
  • Style: Postmodern
300 Madison Avenue Recommended Reading

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