500 Fifth Avenue


500 Fifth Avenue is a 60-floor, office building located between West 42nd and 43rd Streets in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The skyscraper was built for businessman Walter J. Salmon Sr. from 1929 to 1931 and designed by the firm of Shreve, Lamb & Harmon in the Art Deco style. It is adjacent to the Manufacturers Trust Company Building to the north and the Salmon Tower Building to the west, while Bryant Park and the New York Public Library Main Branch are located nearby to the south. The building was designated an official city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2010.

History

Site

between 42nd Street and Central Park South was relatively undeveloped through the late 19th century. In the latter half of that century, mansions and other residences were constructed along the avenue. This gave way to the development of office and commercial buildings at the beginning of the 20th century. By 1923, the Rider's Guide to New York City referred to the blocks of East 42nd Street between Park and Fifth Avenues as "Little Wall Street". The Real Estate Record & Guide called the area "the most valuable building site on Manhattan Island north of Wall Street".
From the 1890s to the 1910s, entrepreneur Walter J. Salmon purchased or leased several buildings along the northern side of West 42nd Street. His first acquisitions were 19 and 21 West 42nd in 1899 and 1901, respectively. In 1903, he signed a 20-year lease for the lot at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, which was occupied by the Hotel Bristol, an eight-story structure built in 1875. The terms of the lease enabled Salmon to convert the hotel to commercial and office use. In 1905, he leased the brownstone rowhouses at 11-17 West 42nd Street and the six-story building at 27-29 West 42nd Street, and the following year, he acquired the properties at 23-25 West 42nd. When Salmon leased the remaining buildings between 3-9 West 42nd Street in 1915, he controlled along the northern side of the street between Fifth Avenue and 29 West 42nd. His parcels totaled, which was considered to be the "minimum size necessary for profitable redevelopment".
Salmon's company, the Midpoint Realty Company, made an agreement with the site's owners, Gerry Estates Inc., for the corner lot's redevelopment in January 1922. Salmon signed a long-term lease for both the Bristol Building and the buildings at 3-9 West 42nd Street. In 1927, Salmon acquired a four-story residence at 508 Fifth Avenue for his corner lot development. The adjacent lots at 11-27 West 42nd would become the Salmon Tower Building, which was completed in 1928. However, the development of the corner site was delayed because of a legal dispute between Salmon and wool merchant Morton Meinhard, who was to provide half of the money for the site's development but did not have any say in the 1922 lease. The New York Supreme Court's Appellate Division ruled in June 1929 that Meinhard was entitled to a half-stake in the site.

Planning and construction

In July 1929, Salmon announced his plans for the corner lot, a 58-story building at 500 Fifth Avenue, measuring along Fifth Avenue and along 42nd Street. The skyscraper was estimated to cost $2.35 million and be completed in late 1930. The Real Estate Record wrote that "the time appeared ripe for an improvement on this corner". The lot was considered the second-most-valuable undeveloped lot in Manhattan, behind 1 Wall Street.
Shreve, Lamb & Harmon were selected to design the new building. Because the zoning ordinances allowed higher buildings along 42nd Street than Fifth Avenue, Salmon merged the zoning lots of 500 and 508 Fifth Avenue, enabling him to construct a taller building than was usually permitted. This also required a separate design for the Fifth Avenue side of the building. Some of rentable office space would be provided, as well as space for banking on the second and third floors, and retail on the first floor. The plans called for numerous architectural features including setbacks and "light courts". The New York City Department of Buildings received plans for 500 Fifth Avenue in October 1929. The following month, the Bristol Building's tenants were evicted, and that December the Bristol Building was demolished. The demolition was complete in January 1930 and excavation of the foundation began the next month.
Similar to the Empire State Building nine blocks south, which was being constructed simultaneously, each structural component at 500 Fifth Avenue was planned in advance. According to architect Richmond Shreve—a lead associate at Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, which designed both buildings—the former's construction "required feats of organization in some respects never before attempted." 500 Fifth Avenue was erected by general contractor Charles T. Wills Inc. and steel contractor McClintic-Marshall Co. The steel contractor started assembling the steel frame in March 1930, and using a system of derricks to expedite construction, was able to complete the steel structure by that July. The brickwork for the building was completed by that September. By December 1930, the building was essentially complete, and 500 Fifth Avenue officially opened in March 1931. The construction process employed up to 2,200 workers, and ultimately cost $4 million. John Tauranac, in his book The Empire State Building: The Making of a Landmark, wrote that upon 500 Fifth's completion, "The Building Record and Guide was calling Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue 'the best known corner in the world'."

Use

In its early years, 500 Fifth Avenue was largely overlooked, as more attention was placed upon the Empire State Building, the world's tallest building at the time. Furthermore, office rental activity was affected by the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Salmon said in December 1930 that although he foresaw it might take a long time to fill the space at 500 Fifth Avenue, "the enterprise was undertaken with the greatest faith in the future of midtown expansion and development." The 15th, 16th, and 20th floors were completely rented by May 1931. Rental activity continued, and by the end of the year, lessees included Electrolux, Western Universities Club, and over ten railroad companies. Other tenants included the Austrian and Japanese consulates, which had moved into the building by the mid-1930s. 500 Fifth Avenue was the original transmitter site for CBS Radio's New York City FM station in 1941.
The Mutual Insurance Company leased the adjacent lots at 508-514 Fifth Avenue from the Manufacturers Hanover Corporation in 1944, and built the Manufacturers Trust Company Building on the site. The Manufacturers Trust Company subleased the lot containing 508 Fifth Avenue to Walter Salmon for 19 years. As part of the agreement, the portion of any structure built on 508 Fifth Avenue's lot could not be more than tall, and as a result, the Manufacturers Trust Company Building ended up only being four stories tall.
The land under the building was owned separately from the building itself, and in 1955, the land was sold to Metropolitan Life Insurance, now known as MetLife. In 1980, a Yugoslavian bank on the 30th floor was bombed, with Croatian nationalists claiming responsibility, though no one was hurt and the structure suffered minimal damage. The facade was restored in the 1990s and 500 Fifth Avenue continues to be used as an office building.

Design

, another lead associate at Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, called 500 Fifth Avenue "a thoroughly frank expression of the requirements of an up-to-date office building." 500 Fifth's design features included fast elevators, well-lit office units, and a floor plan that maximized the well-lit office space. Like the Empire State Building, 500 Fifth was designed from the top down; the floor plans within the upper stories were planned first, followed by the floor plans of the lower stories and the building's base. Offices above the sixth floor were designed so that each unit was a maximum of away from a window or other source of natural light. The area of each floor could be between. Office sizes ranged from the smallest units being wide to the largest units covering the entire floor; on average, there were 21 units on each floor within the base, and 9 units on each floor within the tower section.
The building's primary entrance is on Fifth Avenue about north of 42nd Street. Storefronts are located at ground level on the eastern and southern elevations. As a result of the creation of a special Fifth Avenue zoning district in 1929, new buildings on Fifth Avenue within Midtown had to include stores on their first two floors. At the main entrance was an allegorical relief depicting the building's construction, which was made of limestone and carved by Edward Amateis. Ornamentation depicting a pair of carved eagles is located on the 42nd Street facade.
Lamb cited several factors in the "modern architectural treatment" of 500 Fifth, including the ornamentation and material usage. Bronze, limestone, and terracotta were used on the base's facade, while above the fourth floor, the exterior was made mainly of brick. The second through fourth floors contained decorated limestone piers as well as light-green spandrels ornamented with chevrons and folds. The tower above the fourth floor consisted of recessed brick spandrels with black terracotta panels, which provided "vertical accents" to the building. The idea for the terracotta-and-brick spandrels of the tower was probably taken from the Daily News Building, where a similar spandrel design was used. Little ornamentation is used above the base, except for terracotta panels with chevrons along the facade of the tower.
The 1916 Zoning Resolution resulted in a structure that incorporated setbacks, resulting in the lower floors being larger than the upper floors. Due to the different zoning requirements on Fifth Avenue and on 42nd Street, different designs were used for each side. 500 Fifth includes numerous setbacks on each side, which are complex and asymmetrical. The first setback on 42nd Street is located at a higher story than the first setback on Fifth Avenue. Namely, the Fifth Avenue side's setbacks are located at the 18th, 22nd, and 25th stories, while the 42nd Street side's setbacks are at the 23rd, 28th, and 34th stories. At the time, the heights of skyscrapers in New York City were limited by the perceived economic feasibility of the upper floors. For the lot that 500 Fifth Avenue occupied, which measured, this maximum height was considered to be 59 stories including a penthouse, or roughly.