1585 Broadway

 1585 Broadway is the headquarters of Morgan Stanley, on the west side of Broadway, north of Duffy Square in Midtown Manhattan.

History

Even before 1585 Broadway began to rise over Duffy Square, its developer, David S. Solomon, had signed law firm Proskauer Rose to a 20-year lease for 365,000 square feet (33,900 square meters). A notable achievement at any time, the deal was a milestone in a market where a growing number of new buildings were competing heavily for a shrinking number of tenants.

In December 1991, the original developer, 1585 Broadway Associates, controlled by Solomon, filed for bankruptcy, leaving unfinished building construction, stalled leasing, and strained tenant relationships.

A consortium of banks then gained control of the asset through the bankruptcy process and hired Hines Interests Limited Partnership to manage the property.

Morgan Stanley bought the building for $176 million in August 1993 and moved in two years later. Currently, it uses the building as its world headquarters.
The building is featured in the movie Down to Earth as the skyscraper from which a failing businessman jumps to his death.



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277 Park Avenue

 277 Park Avenue is an office building in New York City and is the current home of the JPMorgan Chase's Investment Banking Division. JP Morgan's takeover of Bear Stearns in 2008 will mean most employees will be moved to 383 Madison Avenue to reduce the leased real estate footprint in Midtown Manhattan.

Previous tenants have included Penthouse Magazine, Schlumberger, Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, Continental Grain Company and Chemical Bank (Predecessor to today's JPMorgan Chase). The office building opened on July 13, 1964. An apartment building designed by McKim, Mead, and White previously occupied the site.
It stands at 687 feet (209 m) tall, with 50 floors.

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55 Water Street

55 Water Street is a 687ft (209m) tall skyscraper in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It was completed in 1972 and has 53 floors. Emery Roth & Sons designed the building, which is tied with 277 Park Avenue as the 40th tallest building in New York City. When it was completed it was the largest office building in the world, and is still the largest in New York by floor area. The Sears Tower in Chicago is the only building in the United States with a bigger floor area. In an arrangement with the Office of Lower Manhattan Development, it was built on a superblock created from four adjoining city blocks. The Whitney Museum of American Art established a branch museum in the building. Space is rented for a token fee and the operating cost are being paid for by several Wall Street corporations. On the north side of the tower is a 15-story wing with a sloping facade and terraces facing the river. In front of the wing is an elevated plaza, known as the Elevated Acre, which is reachable by a high escalator ride. The 4,800 m² plaza was designed by M. Paul Friedberg & Assocs., and has same red brick tiles as his Jeannette Park to the south of the tower. The building, its plazas and Jeannette Park have been renovated and redesigned by Lee S Jablin, Harman Jablin Architects.[1] It was originally planned as a series of high-level public spaces along East River, to be connected with walkways running above the street level.

It was the last major building built by Uris Brothers.
It is the headquarters of EmblemHealth.[3] HIP Health Plan of New York, which became a part of EmblemHealth, moved there with 2,000 employees in October 2004. It was the largest corporate relocation in downtown Manhattan following the September 11 attacks.



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HSBC Bank Building

The Marine Midland Building (also HSBC Bank Building) is a 51-story office building located at 140 Broadway in Manhattan's financial district. The building, completed in 1967, is 688 ft (209.7 m) tall and is known for the distinctive sculpture at its entrance, Isamu Noguchi's Cube. Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the man who designed the building, had originally proposed a monolith type sculpture, but it was deemed to be too expensive. It is currently owned by Union Investment.
The building is approximately 677 feet (206 m) high, measuring approximately 1,170,000 rentable square feet (111,000 square meters).

The building was built by a consortium headed by Harry Helmsley and Marine Midland Bank received naming rights as part of its lease agreement which initially covered the two basement and first 20 floors. Controlling interest in Marine Midland was purchased by HSBC in 1980 and they secured 100% ownership in the 1987; the name of the bank was changed to HSBC Bank USA in 1998. Today the building is known by both names, but is more often referred to by its older name to distinguish it from the other HSBC Buildings.

A bombing occurred on the 8th floor on August 20, 1969, injuring 20 people. The bomb, which police estimated to be the equivalent of 25 sticks of dynamite, was placed in a hallway just off the elevators some time during the evening and it exploded at around 10:30PM. The injured were on the night shift in the bank's stock bookkeeping department and were working on the other side of the corridor wall. Fortunately, the inside of this wall was lined with floor-to-ceiling automated file units that weighed 3 tons each and which absorbed most of the blast. Without them, the 20 injuries would all have been fatalities. The blast moved the file units about a foot, blew out all the windows on that side of the building and opened a 5-foot (1.5 m) hole in the reinforced concrete floor. The bomber, Sam Melville, was convicted of this and seven other 1969 Manhattan bombings and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He was killed by a state sharpshooter during the Attica Prison riots in September 1971.
The primary tenant of the building as of 2010 is Brown Brothers Harriman, leasing some 430,000 ft² (40,000 m²) in 2003. BBH moved to the site from their trademark location at 59 Wall Street, filling a vacancy left after HSBC moved their primary New York offices out of the building, to the HSBC building at 452 5th Ave.



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Solow Building

 The Solow Building, located at 9 West 57th Street, is a Manhattan skyscraper designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill's Gordon Bunshaft and built in 1974. It is located just west of Fifth Avenue, sandwiched between the 57th and 58th Street, next to such prominent buildings as the Bergdorf Goodman department store and the Plaza Hotel. Consisting of 50 stories and 689 ft. (210 m), the building's only competitor by height in the neighborhood is the GM Building, located one block north and east. Floors above the 23rd floor offer a virtually unobstructed view of northern Manhattan and a complete view of Central Park.

One of the notable aesthetic attributes of the building is the concave vertical slope of its north and south facades, on 57th and 58th Street. This is similar to another of Bunshaft's creations, the W. R. Grace Building, which is no coincidence, as he had used the initial, rejected façade design for the Solow Building in his design for the Grace Building.




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Americas Tower

 Americas Tower, also known as 1177 Avenue of the Americas, is a 50-storey, 692-foot (211 m) office tower in Manhattan, New York City, standing at West 45th Street.
Construction began in 1989 and was expected to be completed in 1991. This schedule was altered when construction was halted in December 1989 due to lawsuits. In February 1991, construction resumed.
The tower is designed with a mixture of art deco and postmodern styles. The façade, which is a reddish-pink color, is made of polished granite. The tower was sold in 2002 for US$ 500 million to a group of German-American investors.


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Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower

 The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, also known as the Metropolitan Life Tower or Met Life Tower, is a landmark skyscraper located on East 23rd Street between Madison Avenue and Park Avenue South, off of Madison Square Park. in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by the architectural firm of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons and built by the Hedden Construction Company, the tower is modeled after the Campanile in Venice, Italy. It was constructed in 1909 and served as world headquarters of the company until 2005. It was the world's tallest building for three years, until 1913, when it was surpassed by the Woolworth Building. Currently, the clock tower portion of the building has the address 5 Madison Avenue, while the remainder of the building, occupied primarily by Credit Suisse, is referred to as 1 Madison Avenue.

The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978, and a New York City landmark in 1989.

Architecture


A three-year exterior restoration project, which saw much of the building covered in scaffolding, ended in 2002 and added a new, computerized, multicolored nighttime lighting system, much like that of the Empire State Building; the colors change to denote particular holidays or important events. The gilded cupola at the very top of the building serves as an "eternal light" which stays illuminated even after the rest of the lighting system has been turned off for the night. The building figured prominently in the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's advertising for many years, illustrated with a light beaming from the top of its spire and the slogan, "The Light That Never Fails".



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General Motors Building

 The General Motors Building is a 50-story, 705-foot (215 m) office tower in Manhattan, New York City, facing Fifth Avenue at 59th Street . The building is one of the few structures in Manhattan that occupies a full city block. The building size is approximately 1,774,000 rentable square feet on a plot measuring 200 x 420 (84,350 square feet) that was formerly the site of the Savoy-Plaza Hotel. The tower was designed in the international style by Edward Durell Stone & Associates in association with Emery Roth & Sons.


History

Started in 1964 and finished in 1968, the General Motors Building originally featured, in its street-level lobby, a showroom for the vehicles of General Motors. Currently, the lobby is the home of FAO Schwarz's flagship toy store. The premises of the FAO Schwarz toy store feature a sculpture of a stuffed bear in the plaza and oversized keyboard on the floor played by foot as seen in the film Big. The store won an award for its lighting in 2005.[4]

The building is also home to CBS's The Early Show.

Also in the building is the flagship Apple Store. The Apple Store entrance is a 32 ft (9.8 m) by 32 ft (9.8 m) by 32 ft (9.8 m) glass cube, likened to the Louvre Pyramid, and descent into the store is made via a glass elevator or a treadded spiral staircase surrounding it. This addition was designed by Apple and the firm of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. Other prominent tenants of the General Motors Building include the Estée Lauder Companies, international sports, entertainment & media giant IMG, the holding company Icahn Enterprises, and the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

General Motors had a strong architectural and design presence in New York prior to the General Motors building, at both of its World's Fairs. Here it introduced the Futurama exhibit[A] at the 1939 New York World's Fair. The architecture of this exhibition is attributed to Norman Bel Geddes and was a major piece of Streamline Moderne featuring sinuous ramps, and a guided circuitous route through the exhibition. The design of the General Motors office building was completed in the year of the 1964 New York World's Fair. More architecturally experimental than the office tower, this building was designed like a car with a ride and exhibitions contained inside. Behind a tilted and curved façade likened to a tail fin, Futurama II featured travel via pods and rovers to the moon, under ice and water, to the jungle and desert, the city of tomorrow, and exhibitions of futuristic cars. At General Motors' home in Detroit, many of its buildings had been designed by Albert Kahn including the high-rise Cadillac Place, also known as the "General Motors Building".
The façade is an expression of unbroken verticality in "glistening white Georgia marble"[9] and sheets of glass. Both architectural firms were prolific skyscraper designers contributing to much of Manhattan's urban fabric; however, the property has been more attractive as a piece of real estate and as a home to its corporate tenants, than it has to architecture critics. Paul Goldberger and Ada Louise Huxtable both wrote negative critical reviews of the building and even the first edition of the AIA Guide to New York City (1968), an unabashed apologia for International Modernism, noted "The hue and cry over the new behemoth was based, not on architecture but, rather, first on the loss of the hotel's[B] elegant shopping amenities in favor of automobile salesmanship (an auto showroom is particularly galling at the spot in New York most likely to honor the pedestrian)." The General Motors building was once co-owned by Donald Trump, bought with Conseco in 1998 for what was originally thought to be 800 million dollars, and once bore his name in four-foot gold letters. The cost turned out to be $878 million. Trump raised the controversial sunken plaza where few pedestrians had ventured, which had been criticised by Huxtable. In 2003, the General Motors building set the North American real estate sales record for the price of an office building when it was sold to the Macklowe Organization for USD 1.4 billion.
In February 2008, due to a credit crisis among lenders, the Macklowe Organization put the GM Building up for sale. It was sold in May for an estimated $2.8 billion to a joint venture between Boston Properties, Goldman Sachs Real Estate Opportunities Fund (backed by funds from Kuwait and Qatar), and Meraas Capital (Dubai based real estate private equity firm). It was the largest single asset transaction of 2008.




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JP Morgan Chase World Headquarters

 The JPMorgan Chase Tower or the Union Carbide Building is a skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, designed by the office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. It was built in 1961, and served as the headquarters for Union Carbide until the company moved to Danbury, Connecticut. It is currently the world headquarters for JPMorgan Chase. The building is 707 feet (215 m)-tall and contains 52 floors. The building is currently undergoing a full renovation in order to achieve a LEED Platinum certification.


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500 Fifth Avenue

 500 Fifth Avenue is a 60-floor , 697-foot (212 m) art deco office tower in Manhattan, New York City, standing at West 42nd Street. It is adjacent to Bryant Park.

Like the Empire State Building, it was completed in 1931 and designed by Shreve Lamb & Harmon Associates


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Times Square Tower

 Times Square Tower is a 47-story, 726-foot (221 m) office tower in Times Square in Manhattan, New York City, standing at West 41st Street.

Started in 2002 and completed in 2004, the tower contains Class A office space. Some of the most prominent features of the Times Square Tower are its billboards, several of which hang on the building's façade. Most of the large signs are found near the base, but one 4-story sign is found above the middle of the building.
Originally, this building's tenant was planned to be Arthur Andersen. The firm signed a lease in October 2000, but then backed out in 2002 after the Enron scandal.


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Bertelsmann Building

 Bertelsmann Building, originally known as 1540 Broadway, is a 42-story, 733 foot (223 m) office tower in Times Square in Manhattan, New York City, standing at West 45th Street. The building is the North American headquarters of Bertelsmann.
Started in 1989 and finished in 1990, the tower is one of the few in Times Square to contain class A office space. Also found in the tower is Planet Hollywood's first Official All Star Café, and also there's Mac Flagship, Disney Store, and Forever 21
In the 1990s the Bertelsmann subsidiary of Random House looked to build a skyscraper across 45th Street from its parent and be connected to it via a neon-lighted bridge across 45th Street connecting them. When the deal fell through it built the Random House Tower 10 blocks uptown.



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Three World Financial Center

Three World Financial Center also known as American Express Tower, is one of the thirty tallest skyscrapers in New York City. Located on West Street between Liberty Street and Vesey Street in Lower Manhattan the building is the tallest, 739 feet (225 m), of the four buildings in the World Financial Center complex that stands in southwest Manhattan. It is similar in design to Two World Financial Center, except that it is capped by a solid pyramid where 2 WFC is capped by a dome.

History

Three World Financial Center was severely damaged by the falling debris when the World Trade Center towers collapsed on September 11, 2001. The building's southeast corner took heavy structural damage, though the effects were not enough to create a threat of collapse. The building had to be closed for repairs from September 11, 2001 until May 2002 as a result of damage sustained in the terrorist attacks.

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One Liberty Plaza

 One Liberty Plaza, formerly the U.S. Steel Building, is a skyscraper in lower Manhattan, New York City, at the location of the former Singer Building (in 1968, the third tallest structure ever demolished). 1 Liberty Plaza is currently owned and operated by Brookfield Properties. The building is 743 ft (226 m) tall and 54 floors. It was built in 1973. At 2,200,000 sq ft (200,000 m2), each floor offers almost 1 acre (4,047 m2) of office space, making it one of the largest office buildings in New York.

Its facade is black, consisting of a structural steel frame. The building was originally commissioned by U.S. Steel. It once housed the headquarters of Merrill Lynch. Currently, a variety of tenants occupy the space, from large law firms, such as Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, to public and not-for-profit agencies like the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation.

History

The building had a substantial renovation in 1989 which involved the creation of a new lobby and elevator system. The lobby and elevators have an extensive security system, and the building has a connection to the New York City Subway in the basement.

The building sits next to the World Trade Center site. Following the events of September 11, 2001, the building had broken windows and light facade damage. Brooks Brothers on the ground floor of the building was used as a temporary morgue in the days following the attack.



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One Astor Plaza

 One Astor Plaza is a 745 ft (227 m) high skyscraper in Times Square in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Completed in 1972, the building is 54 stories tall and was designed by Der Scutt of Ely J. Kahn & Jacobs. Originally known as the W. T. Grant Building as headquarters of the eponymous, now-defunct retailer, it is currently the headquarters for Viacom and houses the MTV Studios, Minskoff Theatre, Best Buy Theater, and some retail outlets. It is located at 1515 Broadway between West 44th & 45th Streets. Previously, the Astor Hotel occupied this location. It was built in 1904 and closed in 1967. Construction of the W. T. Grant Building began in 1968 and was completed in 1972.

 Second Floor: MTV Studios

Astor Plaza houses the MTV Studios, which is owned by Viacom, the building's primary tenant. The studios are located on the mezzanine second story of the building. MTV acquired it in 1997. It is split into three major studios all located by the floor-to-ceiling windows and iconic window shades. The three studios are named after the three sections of Manhattan: the Uptown Studio, the Midtown Studio, and the Downtown Studio. They are named so because they are proportional to the real sections of Manhattan. The Uptown Studio was home to MTV's former flagship program, Total Request Live, during the show's run from 1998 to 2008. The Midtown Studio is used by MTV News. The smallest studio, the Downtown Studio, is occasionally used for other countdown shows, such as Direct Effect and Big Ten. It is occasionally used as a temporary green room if the actual green room is occupied. The MTV Studios also include dressing rooms, control rooms, a cafeteria, and some offices.

MTV also uses the seventh floor roof and many upstairs floors in the building.

Goldman Sachs Tower 200 West Street

 Goldman Sachs Tower (200 West Street) is the global headquarters of Goldman Sachs located in Lower Manhattan. The building is a 740-foot-tall (230 m), 43-story building that opened in October 2009 in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Manhattan. It is located on West Street, between Vesey and Murray Streets. It is adjacent to the World Financial Center and the Conrad Hotels, across the street from the Verizon Building, and diagonally opposite the World Trade Center site and One World Trade Center.

                                          Construction

Construction on the building's foundation began in 2005 and faced various construction problems before completion in late 2009.[1] On December 14, 2007, a nylon sling on a crane failed, sending a 7-ton load falling to the ground. It crushed two trailers on the ground and an architect inside.[2] The architect, Robert Woo, may never walk again.[3] Work at the site was halted for several days for safety violations.[4]

The project was halted by New York City officials after a construction accident occurred on May 17, 2008. A 30-by-30-inch (760 × 760 mm) piece of steel fell eighteen stories onto a neighboring baseball field that was in use by children, though no one was injured. The City issued a Stop Work Order and cited the general contractor, Tishman Construction, for five violations.[5] Work resumed in the months thereafter.

The first employees arrived in October 2009. The building occupies 2,100,000 square feet (200,000 m2) and features six large trading floors.[1] Goldman Sachs headquarters were previously at 85 Broad street, and main trading floor was previously at One New York Plaza



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Time Warner Center South Tower and North Tower

The Time Warner Center is a mixed-use skyscraper developed by AREA Property Partners (formerly known as Apollo Real Estate Advisors) and The Related Companies in New York City. Its design, by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, consists of two 750 ft (229 m) towers bridged by a multi-story atrium containing upscale retail shops. Construction began in November 2000, following the demolition of the New York Coliseum, and a topping-out ceremony was held on February 27, 2003. The property had the highest-listed market value in New York City, $1.1 billion, in 2006.

Originally constructed as the AOL Time Warner Center, the building encircles the western side of Columbus Circle and straddles the border between Midtown and the Upper West Side. The total floor area of 260,000 m² (2.8 million ft²) is divided between offices (notably the offices of Time Warner Inc. and an R&D Center for VMware), residential condominiums, and the Mandarin Oriental, New York hotel. The Shops at Columbus Circle is an upscale shopping mall located in a curving arcade at the base of the building, with a large Whole Foods Market grocery store in the basement. The complex is also home to a 1,200 seat theater for Jazz at Lincoln Center as well as CNN studios, from where Anderson Cooper 360°, among other shows, are broadcast live. CNN's Jeanne Moos, known for her offbeat "man on the street" reporting, frequently accosts her interview subjects just outside the building. In 2005, Jazz at Lincoln Center announced a partnership with XM Satellite Radio which gave XM studio space at Frederick P. Rose Hall to broadcast both daily jazz programming and special events such as an Artist Confidential show featuring Carlos Santana.

Design and construction

Construction was delayed for nearly 15 years after Mortimer Zuckerman's Boston Properties initially won a bidding contest to buy the property from the Coliseum's owners, the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Boston proposed to build two 63-story buildings to be designed by Moshe Safdie on the 4.5-acre (18,000 m2) Coliseum site in 1985. Unsuccessful competitors for the site included Donald Trump who proposed building a 137-story, 488 m high building which would have be the world's tallest at the time.

Boston's winning bid was $455 million for the site. It was to be the headquarters of Salomon Brothers. The building ran into intense opposition (including most prominently Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis) who were concerned it would cast a shadow on Central Park. In 1988 a court ruled that the building violated the city's own zoning ordinances. At about the same time, Salomon Brothers backed out.

A renegotiated deal called for the building to be 52-stories with Boston paying a lower price of $357 million for the site. David Childs was tapped to redesign the building.

The building still languished until 2000 when the Coliseum was finally demolished. The Center, which now has 55 floors, markets it as an 80-story building.
The Time Warner Center was the first major building to be completed in Manhattan after the September 11, 2001 attacks, although it was already under construction in 2001. While some New Yorkers noted the uncanny resemblance of the Time Warner Center to the fallen Twin Towers, the building's developer disclaimed to the press any intentional similarity.

The Sunshine Group was in charge of marketing the building. Sandie N. Tillotson bought the top floor of the then uncompleted north tower for $30 million shortly after the September 11 Attacks. It was a record for a condominium at the time.[9] That sale would be eclipsed in 2003 when Mexican financier David Martinez paid $54.7 million for a penthouse condo, then a record for New York residential sales.

The building has several street addresses, including 10 Columbus Circle for offices, 25 Columbus Circle for the south tower that was named "One Central Park" and 80 Columbus Circle for The Residences at Mandarin Oriental. The address One Central Park West, meanwhile, belongs to the Trump International Hotel and Tower across the street, which is owned by Donald Trump. Upon the completion of the Time Warner Center, Trump made a "little joke" at the Time Warner Center’s expense by hanging a large sign on his building gloating, "Your views aren’t so great, are they? We have the real Central Park views and address.

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Exxon Building

 The Exxon Building, more widely known by its address, 1251 Avenue of the Americas, was part of the later Rockefeller Center expansion (1960s-1970s) dubbed the "XYZ Buildings" on Sixth Avenue (also known as Avenue of the Americas). Their plans were first drawn in 1963 by The Rockefeller family's architect, Wallace Harrison of the architectural firm, Harrison and Abramovitz.

Their letters correspond to their height. 1251 is the "X" Building as it is the tallest at 750 ft (229 m) and 54 stories, but was the second one completed (1971). The "Y" is the McGraw-Hill Building, at 1221 Avenue of the Americas, which was the first completed (1969) and is the second in height (674 ft - 51 stories). The "Z" Building, the shortest and the youngest, is the Celanese Building at 1211 Avenue of the Americas with 45 stories (592 ft).

1251 is the second-tallest building in the whole of Rockefeller Center, after the GE Building.

Despite being one of the 100 tallest buildings in the United States, 1251 Avenue of the Americas is all but impossible to see from more than just a few blocks away as it is flanked on all sides by buildings over 500 feet tall. The result is that even though 1251 Avenue of the Americas is approximately as tall as the tallest buildings in cities like Boston or Minneapolis, it has almost no presence on the New York City skyline.

ExxonMobil Corporation subsequently moved its headquarters to Irving in Texas, and its New York offices to Brooklyn; it no longer retains a presence in Rockefeller Center.[citation needed]

Inside, on the western end of 1251's atrium hangs an artist-authorized replica of a tapestry Pablo Picasso created for the ballet Mercure, the original of which hangs in the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris, France. It was created specifically for 1251, as per the plaque beneath it.

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One Penn Plaza

  One Penn Plaza (AKA 1 Penn Plaza) is a skyscraper in New York City, located between 33rd and 34th Streets, west of Seventh Avenue, and adjacent to Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden. It is the tallest building in the Pennsylvania Plaza complex of office buildings, hotels, and entertainment facilities. Official address: 250 W 34th Street, New York, NY 10001

History

The skyscraper was designed by Kahn & Jacobs and completed in 1972. It reaches 750 feet (229 m) with 57 floors. The tower has three setbacks at 7th, 14th, and 55th floors. From its location on the west side of Manhattan, most south, west and north-facing tenants have unobstructed views of the Hudson River.

One Penn Plaza is currently owned by Vornado Realty Trust. It was previously owned by Helmsley-Spear Inc., and the building was sold by Leona Helmsley and her partners for $420 million in the late 1990s.



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AXA Center

 The AXA Equitable Center (originally The Equitable Tower or Equitable Center West) is a 752-foot (229.3 m)-tall skyscraper located in New York City.

It was built in 1986 in the postmodern style by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes[1] and currently serves as the Headquarters for AXA Financial, which consists of a number of subsidiaries of french-based insurance and banking company AXA, such as AXA Equitable Life Insurance and Mutual of New York. Other cornerstone tenants include Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, BNP Paribas, Sidley Austin LLP, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, and Citigroup. It is located at 787 Seventh Avenue between 51st & 52nd Street, in New York, New York.

The structure of the building is mainly composed of steel[2]. The facade is of brown granite in a gridiron pattern with a white background. The tower rises through two setbacks on the north and south sides, indicated by recessed bays on the facade. The plain top has only vertical striping and the east and west sides end in arched windows where the Equitable boardroom is at the ends.

The building is connected to the extensive Rockefeller Center underground concourse. Pedestrian traffic moves through this tower (via an arched galleria at 7th Avenue), across the open mall (between West 51st and 52nd Streets), and into the eastern Equitable Tower.

The building has 54 floors and 142,660m², with a majority of offices, houses the 487 seat AXA Equitable auditorium, and the AXA Equitable Production Group studio.

The Auditorium at the AXA EQUITABLE CENTER is a versatile and convenient venue that has an established reputation as a premiere meeting and event space often used for product launches, corporate meetings, live television premiers and broadcasts, award ceremonies etc. Seats 487 and has full theater capabilities. The Auditorium along with the AXA Equitable Production Group's full production studio service many corporate clients in NYC area. The Atrium at 787 7th avenue is also used for after business and weekend elegant event space.

The skylighted entrance atrium features a large (22.3 x 10.8 meters) mural by Roy Lichtenstein called Mural with Blue Brushstroke, which he completed in 1986.

Other AXA buildings

The Tour AXA, building that formerly housed the headquarters of AXA, is in Paris La Défense. The building is currently 159 meters high, but a major renovation begun in March 2007 will take it to 225 meters.

There is also an AXA Center in Perth, Australia. The building is 75 meters (246 ft) high and has 20 floors. Its construction was finished in 1975[3] as well as Tour AXA in Montreal, Canada which was complete in 1974.



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383 Madison Avenue

 383 Madison Avenue is an office building in New York City located on Madison Avenue between 46th and 47th Streets and owned by JP Morgan Chase. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, it is 755 ft (230 m) tall with 47 floors. It was completed in 2001 and opened in 2002, at which time it was, by some reports, the 88th tallest building in the world. The building has approximately 110 000 rentable square meters (1,200,000 sq ft). Formerly known as the Bear Stearns Building, it housed the world headquarters of the now defunct investment bank from the building's completion until Bear's collapse and sale to JPMorgan Chase in 2008. The building has an octagonal tower that rises out of a rectangular base to a 20 m (70 ft) crown made of glass which is illuminated at night.

The building's visually decorative design differs from the conventional functionalist style of neighboring office buildings, and hence has proven unpopular with some critics. New York said, "This is a building you wouldn't want to get anywhere near at a cocktail party. Dressed nearly head to toe in dour granite, and geometrically proper, it's stiff to the point of pass-out boredom. Out of character with SOM's (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's) current work, the design recalls the firm's unfortunate postmodern interlude a decade ago." [1]

A 72-story tower proposed by G Ware Travelstead for the site during the 1980s was never built. The building (also being referred as Travelstead Tower [2]) was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox.

The building changed hands in 2008 during JP Morgan's takeover of Bear Stearns. On their second-quarter 2008 conference call, JP Morgan estimated the building's value at $1.1—1.4 billion.


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Carnegie Hall Tower

   Carnegie Hall Tower is a 60-story skyscraper located on 57th Street in New York City. Part of a cluster of three very tall buildings (along with CitySpire Center and Metropolitan Tower), the tower was built in an architectural style in harmony with its western neighbor Carnegie Hall, a New York landmark.

The tower is 231 meters (757 ft) tall and was completed in 1991 following the design by Cesar Pelli first conceived in 1987. This design won an Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1994.

The Carnegie Hall Tower seems impossibly slim from the front (the main shaft is 50 feet (15 m) wide) however has wide sides facing its neighbors, the Russian Tea Room and Metropolitan Tower on the east and Carnegie Hall on the west. It was clad in brick and glazed brick of several colors, with precast concrete "lintels" above windows, and painted metal bands at intervals of six floors. The large cornice atop the shaft is an open trellis of wide-flange steel sections. The lobby and common rooms are covered in marble and granite with hardwood and brass accents.

The structural system for this extremely slender tower (2.8:1 aspect ratio above the 44th floor) is two joined tubes of cast-in-place concrete, designed by engineer Jacob Grossman of Robert Rosenwasser Associates.




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One Worldwide Plaza

 One Worldwide Plaza is part of a three-building, mixed-use commercial and residential complex completed in 1989, in the New York City borough of Manhattan, known collectively as Worldwide Plaza. One Worldwide Plaza is a commercial office tower on Eighth Avenue. Two Worldwide Plaza is a residential condominium tower west of the center of the block, and Three Worldwide Plaza is a low-rise condominium residential building with street level stores on Ninth Avenue, to the west of the towers. The complex occupies an entire city block, bounded by Eighth Avenue, Ninth Avenue, 49th Street, and 50th Street. Located on the west side of Eighth Avenue, One Worldwide Plaza is built on the site of New York City's third Madison Square Garden. The 50th Street subway station is underneath.

Description

Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the Worldwide Plaza complex was developed by William Zeckendorf, Jr. The building of One Worldwide Plaza was documented in a Channel 4 / PBS mini-series and a companion book Skyscraper: The Making of a Building by Karl Sabbagh (ISBN 978-0140152845).

One Worldwide Plaza is a 49-story, 1.5 million square feet (139,355 m²), 778-foot (237 m) tall office skyscraper. The building has three separate entrances to accommodate the various tenants in the building, which include the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore and, formerly, the international advertising agency of Ogilvy & Mather. The base of the building is made of granite and precast concrete. The tower facade is made of brick. The building is crowned by a copper roof and glass pyramid known as "David's Diamond" after the architect, David Childs.

A mid-block public plaza separates One Worldwide Plaza from the residential buildings of Two Worldwide Plaza and Three Worldwide Plaza. The public plaza is a bonus space granted under New York City Department of City Planning. The creation and maintenance of the public plaza resulted in permission to build additional floors in the office tower. The landscaping of the plaza contains over 40 trees and numerous plantings, and a cafe. Public seating is available year round. The center of the plaza is highlighted by a fountain created by Sidney Simon called "The Four Seasons". Four female statues, each modelled by Molly Ackerman and representing a season, hold up a globe.
A theater space beneath the public plaza, was originally a six-screen movie theater but is now occupied by five off-Broadway theaters known as New World Stages. Access is gained by two kiosk buildings: one on 49th Street and the other on 50th Street.

In July 2009, Deutsche Bank agreed to sell Worldwide Plaza for just $600 million after a previous sale of $1.74bn in February 2007, a 66% drop in value in just 2 years. Developer George Comfort & Sons was the buyer, and the purchase was the biggest after the NYC downturn, which followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Harry B. Macklowe had lost the building to Deutsche in 2008.




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Woolworth Building

 The Woolworth Building is one of the oldest skyscrapers in New York City. More than a century after the start of its construction, it remains, at 57 stories, one of the fifty tallest buildings in the United States as well as one of the twenty tallest buildings in New York City. Since 1966 it has been a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark since 1983

Recent history

The building was owned by the Woolworth company for 85 years until 1998, when the Venator Group (formerly the F. W. Woolworth Company) sold it to the Witkoff Group for $155 million.[10] Until recently, that company kept a presence in the building through a Foot Locker store (Foot Locker is the successor to the Woolworth Company).

Prior to its 2001 destruction, the World Trade Center was often photographed in such a way that the Woolworth Building could be seen between 1 and 2 World Trade Center.[citation needed] After the September 11, 2001 attacks a few blocks away, the building was without electricity, water and telephone service for a few weeks and had broken windows and the top turret was damaged by falling rubble. Increased post-attack security restricted access to most of the ornate lobby, previously a tourist attraction.[11]

The structure has a long association with higher education, housing a number of Fordham University schools in the early 20th century. Today, the building houses, among other tenants, TTA Inc., Control Group Inc. and the New York University School of Continuing and Professional Studies' Center for Global Affairs.



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Bloomberg Tower

Bloomberg Tower is a 1,400,000 sq ft (130,000 m2) glass skyscraper on the East Side of Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It houses the headquarters of Bloomberg L.P., retail outlets, restaurants and 105 luxury condominiums. The residences are known as One Beacon Court and are served by a separate entrance.[1] The tower is the 15th tallest building in New York City and the 46th tallest in the United States. It stands at 55 stories tall, reaching 806 ft (246 m).





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MetLife Building

 History

The MetLife Building (formerly Pan Am Building) was the largest commercial office building in the world when it opened on March 7, 1963.[3] It is a recognizable part of the Manhattan skyline and one of the fifty tallest buildings in the United States. It faced huge unpopularity when it was first built, and was described as an 'ugly behemoth', due to its lack of proportion and huge scale - it dwarfed the New York Central Building to the north and the Grand Central Terminal to the south.[citation needed]

The MetLife Building as seen from the Empire State Building

Pan American World Airways was the building's owner for many years. Its logotype was depicted on signs placed on the building's north and south faces and its globe logo was depicted on signs placed on the building's east and west faces. The MetLife Building was the last tall tower erected in New York City before laws were enacted that prevented placing corporate logos and names on the tops of buildings.[4]

Pan Am originally had 15 floors in the Pan Am Building. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company bought the Pan Am Building from Pan Am in 1981; Pan Am's headquarters remained in the building. In 1991 Pan Am had 4 floors left; during that year Pan Am moved its headquarters to Miami. Shortly afterwards the airline ceased operations. On Thursday September 3, 1992, MetLife announced that it would remove Pan Am signage from the building. Robert G. Schwartz, the chairman, chief executive, and president of MetLife, said that the company decided to remove the Pan Am sign since Pan Am ceased operations. At the time MetLife was headquartered in the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower.[5]

In 2005, MetLife sold the building for $1.72 billion, the record price at the time for an office building in the U.S. The buyer was a joint venture of Tishman Speyer Properties, the New York City Employees' Retirement System, and the New York City Teachers' Retirement System

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Condé Nast Building

The Condé Nast Building, officially 4 Times Square, is a modern skyscraper in Times Square in Midtown Manhattan. Located on Broadway between 42nd Street and 43rd, the structure was finished in January 2000 as part of a larger project to redevelop 42nd Street. The building stretches 48 stories to 809 ft (247 m) making it the 12th tallest building in New York City and the 41st tallest in the United States. The size of the tower raised concerns from the city about what impact this sized tower would have on Times Square. The major office space tenants are magazine publishing company Condé Nast and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, a prominent U.S. law firm. Duane Reade is a major retail tenant.

4 Times Square is owned by The Durst Organization. The architects were Fox & Fowle who also designed the Reuters Building as part of the larger project. The building contains 1,600,000 square feet (150,000 m2) of floor space. In 1995, 4 Times Square was the first speculative office building to be developed in New York City in almost a decade, but it was fully leased and occupied almost immediately after completion.[1] The City Hall chose Fox & Fowle architectural firm to design the building because they were known as the designers of ecologically sustainable buildings.

NASDAQ's MarketSite is located at the northwest corner of the building. It is a seven-story cylindrical tower with a high-tech electronic display, providing market quotes, financial news and advertisements. The ground floor of the MarketSite contains a television studio with a wall of monitors and an arc of windows looking out onto Times Square. Including the antenna, its height is 1,143 ft (348 m), making it the third tallest structure in New York City, behind the Empire State Building and the Bank of America Tower.

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Green design

4 Times Square is one of the most important examples of green design in skyscrapers in the United States. Environmentally friendly gas-fired absorption chillers, along with a high-performing insulating and shading curtain wall, ensure that the building does not need to be heated or cooled for the majority of the year. The air-delivery system provides 50% more fresh air than is required by New York City Building Code,[2] and a number of recycling chutes serve the entire building. The building uses solar and fuel cell technology. Being the first project of its size to undertake these features in construction, the building has received an award from the American Institute of Architects, as well as AIA New York State.
 

One Chase Manhattan Plaza

One Chase Manhattan Plaza is a banking skyscraper located in the downtown Manhattan Financial District of New York City, between Pine, Liberty, Nassau, and William Streets. Construction on the building was completed in 1961. It has 60 floors, with 5 basement floors, and is 248 meters (813 ft) tall, making it the 11th tallest building in New York City, the 43rd tallest in the United States, and the 200th tallest building in the world.[1]

The building is built in the International style, with a white steel facade with black patterns just below the windows. Designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the building echoes the Inland Steel Building in Chicago.


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History

One Chase Manhattan Plaza (right) and 40 Wall Street (center)

The Chase Manhattan Bank president of that time, David Rockefeller, the current patriarch of the Rockefeller family, was the prime mover of the construction and the building's location, notably because many corporations had moved uptown, and the Financial District had languished as a result. One Chase Manhattan Plaza is currently occupied by the successor to the "Rockefeller Bank", JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Originally, its major tenants included the white shoe firms Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy (then the bank's main outside counsel), Davis Polk & Wardwell and Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Davis Polk and Cravath moved to midtown in the eighties, but Milbank remains.

"The building is an enormous steel-framed rectangle, 813 feet (248 m) high, containing about 1,800,000 square feet (170,000 m2) above ground level, with another 600,000 square feet (55,742 m²) below grade for a truck entrance, mechanical equipment rooms, vaults, a branch bank, and a cafeteria. On the facade are anodized aluminum panels, mullions, and column cladding. Aluminum was chosen because it was cheaper than stainless steel, and the manufacturer offered a long performance guarantee. The columns, nearly 3 x 5 feet (0.9 x 1.5 m) in size, stand 29 feet (8.8 m) apart on the long axis and project from the long façades of the building; on the short sides, floors are cantilevered beyond the columns."

"...When seen from a distance, the bank looks bulky among the slender towers of pre- Depression skyscrapers. Its surface can also appear obtrusive because the earlier building surfaces of brick and stone absorb light while Chase's aluminum and glass reflect it. Seen from ground level, especially from its principal plaza, the building is a commanding presence."Chase's tall rectangle is asymmetrical in plan, with the elevator and service core shifted off center to allow a 45-foot (14 m) wide clerical pool on the south and individual offices and a corridor 29 feet (8.8 m) wide on the north. These broad spaces are uninterrupted by columns, adding to the cost but producing about 6 percent more continuous space for desks.
 

CitySpire Center

 The CitySpire Center is the tallest mixed-use skyscraper in New York City, located on the south side of West 56th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Midtown Manhattan. Finished in 1987, it is 248 meters (814 ft) tall and has 73 floors, with a total area of 359,000 square feet (33,400 m2). The building is owned by Tishman Speyer Properties.

Designed by Helmut Jahn, it is the eleventh-tallest building in New York City and the 42nd tallest in the United States. The bottom 23 floors of the tower are for commercial use and above it are luxury apartments, which increase in size the higher they are.

Soon after the building's completion, residents of nearby buildings complained of hearing a loud whistling noise which, it later turned out, came from the wind blowing through the decorative dome at the building's top. The city threatened daily fines for the noise, which lasted for more than a year. Developers silenced the whistle by removing every other louver in the cooling tower, thereby widening the narrow channels through which the wind whistled.
The Moorish-inspired dome, which is an homage to the adjacent New York City Center on West 55th Street, is illuminated at night with a white light. The building has an unusual octagonal shape.

CitySpire Center is very close to two skyscrapers on 57th Street, Carnegie Hall Tower (which mimics the design of its famous namesake concert hall) and Metropolitan Tower.

Some time around completion, it was revealed that the building exceeded its height limit by around 14 feet (4 m). The developers compensated for this violation by agreeing to build dance studio space for the city's Department of Cultural Affairs on an adjacent site.
When completed, the CitySpire Center was the second tallest concrete tower in the world.


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