Category Archives: MIDTOWN

At 80, the Empire State Building strikes back

It is so obvious, so cliché and so visible that visiting the Empire State Building gets, ironically, overlooked. Like the single slice meal, blue Yankee cap and yellow cab, the skyscraper is in the city’s DNA, so familiar you feel as if you have been there even if you have never stepped foot on the observation deck. Continue reading

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Posted in Art Deco, EMPIRE STATE BUILDING, MIDTOWN, Office, Skyscraper | Leave a comment

The development of the Commercial Pallazo in New York

Most accounts of Western architecture in the first half of the twentieth century have concentrated on European functionalism and expressionism. Le Corbusier, Gropius and Mies van der Rohe have claimed the
limelight, although the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright has also been acknowledged. In this rather restricted context, relatively few office buildings of the period 1900 to 1940 have featured in the literature, no doubt because many conservative businessmen tended to shy away from radical – some said Bolshevik – brands of modern architecture. Continue reading

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Posted in Demolished, Endangered, Heritage, Restoration, Landmarks, Hotel Pennsylvania, Lower Manhattan, McKim Mead & White, MIDTOWN, Office | Leave a comment

Stanford White’s Backdrop for the Panic of 1907

THE continuing banking debacle presents some parallels with the sad case of Charles Tracy Barney, who in the Panic of 1907 lost control of the Knickerbocker Trust Company, which shut down to his disgrace. And just as Mr. Barney’s tragedy was playing out, the seeds were sown for the mutilation of his superb 1903 bank at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, designed by Stanford White.
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Posted in Historic Victorian, McKim Mead & White, MIDTOWN | 1 Comment

Setai will change the neighborhood’s character

Executives at Bizzi predict the Setai will change the neighborhood’s character. “It’s a location that should improve,” says Chairman Davide Bizzi. “We are helping with that.” Continue reading

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Posted in MIDTOWN, Residential, Setai Fifth Avenue | Leave a comment

Half-Glassed Broadway Office Building Faces Foreclosure

September 3, 2010, by Sara In happier times for the commercial real estate market, the Moinian Group was one of many landlords that decided a facade facelift on one of its properties could do wonders for its bottom line. The … Continue reading

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Posted in 3 Columbus Circle, MIDTOWN, Skyscraper | Leave a comment