Crown Building (Manhattan)

The Crown Building is at 730 Fifth Avenue, at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The land lot is composed of a rectangular site at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, as well as a connected site at 56th Street. The lot covers , with a frontage of on Fifth Avenue and a depth of along 57th Street. On the same block is the townhouse at 17 West 56th Street. The 712 Fifth Avenue skyscraper and the townhouses at 10 and 12 West 56th Street are one block south, 745 Fifth Avenue is directly to the northeast, and the Bergdorf Goodman Building and Solow Building are immediately across 57th Street to the north. Other nearby buildings include 3 East 57th Street to the northwest; the Tiffany & Co. flagship store, Trump Tower, and 590 Madison Avenue to the east; and the Corning Glass Building to the southeast. Fifth Avenue between 42nd Street and Central Park South (59th Street) was relatively undeveloped through the late 19th century. The surrounding area was once part of the common lands of the city of New York. The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 established Manhattan's street grid with lots measuring deep and wide. Upscale residences were constructed around Fifth Avenue following the American Civil War. These included two residences on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street: a mansion belonging to Frederic W. Stevens at the southwest corner, and the Cornelius Vanderbilt II House on the northwest corner. By the 1900s, that section of Fifth Avenue was becoming a commercial area, and stores were also developed on 57th Street in the 1910s. After about 1921, art galleries started to supplant residences on 57th Street, and other art galleries developed on the street in general. The Crown Building is also near a former artistic hub around a two-block section of West 57th Street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway. The hub had been developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, after the opening of Carnegie Hall on Seventh Avenue in 1891. The area contained several headquarters of organizations such as the American Fine Arts Society, the Lotos Club, and the ASCE Society House. By the 21st century, the arts hub had largely been replaced with Billionaires' Row, a series of luxury skyscrapers around the southern end of Central Park. Previous buildings Before the Crown Building's construction, the site at 728 Fifth Avenue was occupied by a marble townhouse belonging to the businessman Charles W. Morse. The Morse family owned the house until it was sold at a foreclosure auction in 1910, then acquired by the businessman Harry Payne Whitney in May 1911. Next door at 2 West 57th Street was a mansion built from 1875 to 1876 for the lawyer and banker Frederic W. Stevens. The Stevens house, designed by George E. Harney, The Stevens house's interior was undistinguished, except for a ballroom imported from Belgium; it also was acquired by the Whitney family by the 1910s. == Architecture ==

The Crown Building was designed by Charles D. Wetmore of Warren and Wetmore and completed in 1921 as the Heckscher Building. Wetmore had invested in the tower's construction along with the mining magnate August Heckscher. The structure includes details in the French Renaissance style, Châteauesque decorations like salamanders were incorporated into the design. with a nine-story base, a twelve-story shaft, and four-story octagonal pyramidal roof. The building was divided into stores and showrooms on the lower levels and offices on the upper floors. In addition to the main structure on 57th Street and Fifth Avenue, there was a six-story annex facing 56th Street, which originally had its own entrance. The Crown Building's massing, or shape, was regulated by the 1916 Zoning Resolution. After the building was converted into a hotel and residential building in the 2020s, outdoor terraces and swimming pools were added to the setbacks. Some of the setbacks also have glass railings. According to a promotional brochure from the time, was the largest such application of gold leaf in a commercial building in the U.S. Terracotta reliefs drew attention to each of the main setbacks, while copper spandrel panels with reliefs were used to unite the windows on different stories. At ground level, the northern facade along 57th Street measures across and is divided vertically into 18 bays. The eastern facade on Fifth Avenue is across and is divided into 11 bays. The lowest two stories contain double-height storefronts divided by limestone pilasters and topped by flat arches with small brackets and rounded corners. One of the storefronts (the Bulgari store at the corner of 57th Street and Fifth Avenue) has a mesh facade whose design is patterned after a 1930s bracelet clasp. The original main entrance was at the far left (south) end of the Fifth Avenue elevation; it contained four doors, flanked by columns and pilasters. Roof The gilded spandrel panels above the 22nd story resemble the spandrel panels used in the base and shaft. On the 24th story, each bay is separated vertically by panels with rhombus motifs, and there are colonettes with spiral motifs at each corner. The 24th-story windows are topped by a horizontal row of corbels. Above the southwest corner of the 24th story is a chimney with rhombus, chevron, and salamander motifs. The 25th story is set back and contains several ornate dormer windows with pilasters, shell motifs, cartouches, and pediments. as well as of office space. Base Originally, the building's base contained numerous art galleries and showrooms. In the basement were a shipping room and freight-handling facilities. At ground level was a T-shaped shopping arcade. The hotel and residences have separate entrances. Glass soundproofing is used throughout both the hotel and residences. The Aman New York's spaces are generally decorated in what one magazine described as "minimalist colors", although there are also gold-plated decorations, an allusion to the gold leaf on the facade. The hotel suites were designed by Jean-Michel Gathy. Each of the hotel rooms covers between ; at the time of the building's conversion, even the smallest rooms were twice the average size of a studio apartment in Midtown. Various woods are used for doors, floors, and other furniture, and steel, brass, and bronze are also used. Each suite has a bathroom with a large tub and shower. The largest suites are the Aman suites on floors 11 and 12, which each have a kitchenette, a bar, and hidden compartments. The residential condos are on floors 15 through 26. They have a combined area of , giving each residence an average area of . The largest residence in the building is a five-story penthouse that covers ; it has a full-floor master suite as well as a piano lounge, a gallery, two pools, two kitchens, four other bedrooms, and a game room. The five-bedroom, Vana penthouse on floor 21 has a library and private theater. Another large unit is the four-bedroom, Jala penthouse on floor 20, Amenity spaces The hotel portion of the building has a spa and three restaurants. and it spans across three stories. The two "spa houses" have various treatment rooms, pools, beds, and fireplaces, which can be rented out. The hotel also has two restaurants: Nama, which serves Japanese cuisine, and Arva, which serves Mediterranean cuisine. Floor 14 has an atrium with sculptures designed by Peter Gentenaar. The club is limited to 600 members whose identities are not publicized. Members are allowed to use the hotel's amenities, receive discounted food at the restaurants, and have a private concierge. ==History==

Heckscher ownership What is now the Crown Building was developed by August Heckscher, who had built his fortune from mining and Manhattan real estate. Heckscher actively mined commodities such as copper, coal, and zinc in the northeastern U.S. during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He began buying buildings in Manhattan in 1910, and he was also a philanthropist who supported museums such as the Heckscher Museum of Art and El Museo del Barrio. The Real Estate Record and Guide wrote in 1912 that Heckscher "has not invested largely in real estate hitherto as an individual" but owned at least two other Fifth Avenue properties. Before Heckscher developed what is now the Crown Building, he had built another Heckscher Building at the intersection of Madison Avenue and 42nd Street; that building also had setbacks in its design, even though it predated the 1916 Zoning Resolution. Heckscher told his broker not to publicize the fact that he was buying the structure, but the Real Estate Record and Guide reported that Heckscher was involved with the 734 Fifth Avenue Company. That July, Heckscher hired H. Edwards Ficken to build a three-story commercial building on the site. The structure included stores on the ground story, offices on the second, and galleries on the third. In November 1915, Heckscher acquired the adjacent properties at 7 West 56th Street and 6–8 West 57th Street from the estate of J. S. Kennedy. The site was quickly resold to Michael Dreicer, who built a structure on the 57th Street lots. Heckscher bought back 7 and 9 West 56th Street from Dreicer in February 1918. Heckscher formed a holding company called Anahma Realty, which was named after his yacht, though work was delayed likely due to the Spanish flu. Development George Backer leased the corner of 57th Street and Fifth Avenue for 21 years, along with the adjacent Kennedy property on 56th Street, from Heckscher in 1919. The L-shaped site wrapped around Joseph Duveen's art dealership on 56th Street. the base would have risen above ground, while the shaft would have ascended another . The lower stories would have contained eight stories of showrooms and commercial stores, and the apartments and offices would have been located above. There would also have been an enclosed shopping arcade leading from both 57th Street and Fifth Avenue. The arcade would have led to a 900-seat, ten-story theater on 56th Street. The Heckscher Building was to be the first tall building along the Midtown segment of Fifth Avenue, That August, Wetmore reduced the building's overall height to 25 stories, and the apartments and theater were removed from the plans. Backer's construction company built the Heckscher Building, while Heckscher had a one-third ownership stake in the building. After Backer's death in May 1921, Although media from August 1921 advertised the building as being ready for occupancy by the beginning of September, the building was still reportedly not complete in January 1922. The structure was finished in 1922. Tenants with full floors in the building included upholstery and decoration distributor Stroheim & Romann, the Consolidated Cigar Company, stockbroker J. P. Benkard & Co., and oil refiner Cosden & Co. ''Women's Wear'' wrote that the building's completion coincided with the increasing concentration of businesses along 57th Street, while the New York Herald Tribune wrote that its construction accelerated its commercial redevelopment. In any case, the building was nearly fully occupied in October 1923, Other early tenants with large amounts of space included jewelers Udall & Ballou and the Hadley-Leon apparel store. Harry Payne Whitney offered $7 million to buy the building in 1926, though Heckscher declined. Instead, Heckscher refinanced the building in 1930 with a $4.5 million mortgage loan, replacing the previous mortgages. The Museum of Modern Art moved into a six-room gallery on the Heckscher Building's twelfth floor in November 1929; it was MoMA's first-ever location. Among the notable exhibitions that MoMA hosted at the building was the Modern Architecture: International Exhibition, in which curators Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson popularized the term International Style. MoMA also displayed work from other artists, such as Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat, and Paul Gauguin, at the Heckscher Building. MoMA remained at the Heckscher Building until 1932, During the 1930s, other tenants with large amounts of space included womenswear company Nelson-Hickson Inc., linen retailers William Coulson & Sons, antiques dealer Symons Inc., film studio Universal Pictures, and camera maker E. Leitz Inc. There was also a four-room exhibition studio for Studio Guild Galleries, in addition to a contract bridge club and a luncheon club. With the construction of Rockefeller Center nearby in the 1930s, Heckscher blamed Rockefeller Center's developers for decreased demand at his building. Heckscher sued Rockefeller Center's developers for $10 million in January 1934, claiming that the developers took over the tenants' old leases at below market rate or paid tenants to disregard or cancel the leases at their old buildings. No trial was ever held for the lawsuit, The Heckscher Building was offered for sale at a foreclosure auction in early July 1938, and City Bank Farmers Trust paid $4.25 million for the structure that month. Mid-20th century During the 1940s, space in the building was leased to tenants such as dressmaker Wilma Gowns, perfume seller Parfums Charbert, and the Motion Picture Sales Corporation. In addition, the building's weather vane was removed in 1942 to provide scrap metal for World War II. At the time, the structure was earning $700,000 in rent per year. It was valued at $4.875 million for tax purposes. The Herald Tribune wrote that Durst had urged Noyes to buy the building after several other developers had expressed interest in the building, Durst and Duncan Findlay received a $4.15 million mortgage loan for the building in mid-1949. The Durst and Findlay families sold the building in November 1950 to Kenneth S. Keyes, who represented two anonymous Cuban investors. By then, the building's tenants paid about $1 million in annual rent and occupied about of office space. Further space was leased in the 1950s and 1960s to tenants such as specialty shop Blackton-Fifth Avenue Ltd., the U.S. Senate campaign offices of Herbert Lehman, talent agency Mercury Artists, paint company Martin-Senour, and cosmetic and perfume company Lanvin-Charles of the Ritz. The building was renamed the Genesco Building in 1964 when Genesco became a major tenant. At the time, Genesco owned an I. Miller shoe store at the base and the Bonwit Teller department store across the street. By the late 1970s, Centurion reported that the building was nearly fully occupied. New York Land was working on behalf of Imelda Marcos, the wife of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who purchased it through a Dutch Antillean company named Lastura Corp. N.V. Lastura, in turn, was owned by a Panamanian shell company. In a subsequent criminal case, one witness testified that Ferdinand Marcos was initially reluctant to buy the building, but relented after his wife tearfully pleaded for him to purchase it. The acquisition cost $51 million. Joseph Bernstein was designated as the trustee for Lastura Corp. N.V. Marcos also received a $30 million loan from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Philippines Central Bank; he allegedly forced an associate to submit a fraudulent loan application to the bank. The new owners added 23-karat gold leaf to the building's facade, reportedly to compete with the decorations on the then-new Trump Tower across Fifth Avenue. Leigh also added floodlights atop the Tiffany, Manufacturers Hanover, and Bergdorf Goodman buildings, at the other three corners of the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, to match the Crown Building's lights. The new lights atop all four buildings were activated in January 1983, New York Land funded the installation of a large illuminated snowflake-shaped object above Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, and they upgraded the elevators as well. During the 1980s, a group of 38 art galleries leased the building's second and third floors. Other new tenants during that decade included a store for Salvatore Ferragamo S.p.A., a temporary construction office for Donald Trump, and a jewelry gallery. New York Land also wanted to market the office space to large firms, so it paid some of the smaller tenants to move out. Also during that decade, preservationists had proposed designating the Crown Building as a contributing property to a planned historic district along the midtown section of Fifth Avenue. The historic district was never created. Attempted sales In August 1985, opposition politicians in the National Assembly of the Philippines submitted a complaint in an unsuccessful attempt to impeach Marcos; the complaint alleged that Imelda Marcos had bought the Crown Building in 1981. A United States House of Representatives committee found that the Bernsteins had been working on behalf of Marcos, who had intended the building and several others as a gift for his wife Imelda. The Washington Post reported that in coded cables between the Marcos family and their alleged "front" in Manhattan, Gliceria Tantoco, the Crown Building was referred to using the code word "Ferragamo". By February 1986, the Crown Building and three other buildings reportedly owned by the Marcoses were being placed for sale. Around that time, the Bernsteins were contemplating paying $250 million for the Crown Building and two of the other buildings. The Bernsteins alleged that they paid $235 million for the Crown Building, Herald Center, and 40 Wall Street, but the Philippine government claimed that the sale was never finalized. The Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi also claimed to be involved with the building's purchase; he asserted that he had owned the building for several years before the Bernsteins' alleged purchase. As a result, the building's tax bills went unpaid. A lawyer alleged that the building's value was declining under the Bernsteins' management. After a U.S. circuit court ruled to block the sale of the Marcos properties in November 1986, Aquino's administration filed a lawsuit against the Marcos estate to obtain title to the buildings. Security Pacific Bank held one of the building's mortgage loans, which was worth either $60 million or $76 million by 1989. and the loan had been foreclosed upon by the following year. Federal judge Pierre N. Leval ruled in 1988 that the building could be sold at a foreclosure auction. because the Philippine government, the Bernsteins, and Khashoggi each claimed ownership over it. The Aquino administration attempted in early 1989 to sell the four Marcos properties to Morris Bailey for $398 million, over the objections of the Bernsteins and Khashoggi. Khashoggi was also accused of helping the Marcoses hide their stakes in their buildings, although he was acquitted of all racketeering charges relating to the properties. By late 1989, Leval was planning a foreclosure auction for the building, setting the minimum bid at $125 million. The auction was originally scheduled for that October, but it was rescheduled eight times due to uncertainty over who owned the structure. An unidentified buyer offered $120 million for the building the following year. Spitzer, Winter, and Greene ownership The Aquino administration, Khashoggi, and the Bernsteins settled their conflicting claims to the building in late 1990, agreeing to split the profits after the building was sold and the mortgage was paid off. By then, the building was half-empty. After the $89 million mortgage and various taxes were paid off, comparatively little remained; To attract tenants, Spitzer and his partners subdivided the interior space and advertised the building's location, design, and floor areas; they had managed to lease 10 percent of the empty space by the end of 1991. The building was 80 percent occupied by 1993, with foreign companies comprising many of the new tenants. The building's occupants during the 1990s included fashion designer Louis Féraud, fashion designer Laura Biagiotti, art gallery Kennedy Galleries, fashion showroom Falmola, antique dealer Israel Sack, and watch company Piaget SA. Luxury goods store Bruno Magli leased the penthouse, while other office space was occupied by fashion firm Mondo Inc., lifestyle magazine Playboy, and hotel chain Sun International. Despite the owners' initial failure to attract art-gallery owners to the building, by the mid-1990s the Crown Building was in high demand among art galleries. The owners also leased out some prebuilt office space in the building. In addition, the Bulgari store in the building was renovated and expanded in 1997. During the 2000s, the building gained tenants such as a Smythson stationery store, a Vidal Sassoon fashion salon, a Gilan jewelry showroom, and the headquarters of the Nina Footwear Corporation (which had acquired I. Miller). In addition, the building had a coworking space. After Spitzer's son Eliot Spitzer resigned as the governor of New York, Eliot had an office at the Crown Building. When Bernard Spitzer died in 2014, Eliot continued to operate the building alongside the Winter family. Redevelopment Sales In December 2014, Eliot Spitzer and the Winters began looking to sell the building for at least $1.8 billion. Jeff Sutton's Wharton Properties and Sandeep Mathrani's General Growth Properties purchased the building for about $1.75 billion that month, including both the office space and the lower-story retail space. The sale price of made the Crown Building the world's costliest office building per square foot at the time. Though the sale was one of the largest deals in New York City real estate history, That month, developer Michael Shvo and Russian billionaire Vladislav Doronin purchased the top 21 stories for about $500 million. The hotel and residences would be operated by Doronin's Aman Resorts Some of the building's office tenants began leaving after the sale was announced, while other tenants, including several art galleries, were forced out of the office space against their wishes. Wharton and General Growth also evicted tenants on the lower stories so these areas could be converted to retail space. They leased out two of the building's storefronts at rates that greatly exceeded the area's average. Bulgari signed a new lease in late 2015, reducing its space to , and Zegna leased on the first and second floors in March 2016. The last non-retail tenant in the base, ICM Partners, moved out in June 2016. Shvo and Doronin submitted a condominium offering plan to the New York Attorney General's office that November. Early plans called for 79 hotel rooms on the 4th through 9th stories; three floors of amenity space; and 26 residential condos above the 11th story. The terms of the Aman New York's condo offering allowed the developers to rent out some of the apartments as hotel rooms. Following allegations of corruption against Shvo, Doronin estimated that the penthouse apartment would be sold for $100 million, while the other units would be sold for at least $4 million. Doronin also planned to add large terraces and outdoor pools to the setbacks. In March 2018, a buyer offered $180 million for the Aman's penthouse, making it one of the highest-priced residential sales in the U.S.; however, the sale was not finalized. Doronin received a $284 million loan for the hotel portion of the building that December. The Zegna store at the building's base was also redesigned by Marino and reopened in February 2019. By mid-2019, there were buyers for about half of the building's apartments, despite decreased demand for luxury apartments along the nearby Billionaires' Row. and Apollo Global agreed to provide $807 million that August. Sutton sold most of his stake in the retail space to Brookfield Properties that month, reportedly due to dissatisfaction over the terms of the refinancing. Doronin's OKO Group received $750 million in construction loans in October 2019 to renovate the upper levels. Jean-Michel Gathy was hired to renovate the hotel portion of the building, and the first units became available in early 2021. The project included adding design details such as fireplaces between windows, which, according to Gathy, helped to make the building "luxurious". and the city fined the developer $12,500 as a result. Doronin sought to refinance the hotel in early 2022, and he refinanced the hotel that June with a $754 million loan from JPMorgan Chase. Buyers began finalizing their purchases in mid-2022. Of the first 12 buyers to finalize their purchases, five had paid more than $20 million each; Doronin predicted that the apartments would sell for a total of $893 million. Hotel opening and 2020s The Aman New York opened on August 11, 2022. The cheapest rooms rented for $3,200 making the Aman the city's most expensive hotel. A Chopard watch shop opened at the building's base in December 2022. Three of the building's apartments ranked among the most expensive apartments in New York City during 2022. The purchasers of the condos included a trust operated by Meta Platforms and Hong Kong businessman Terence Chan. In 2023, some of the condo owners began renting out their homes to hotel guests. The fashion house Chanel opened a two-story store at the Crown Building's base, its first standalone watch-and-jewelry boutique in the United States, in February 2024. By the next month, sales had been finalized for 17 of the condos. On May 14, 2024, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Crown Building as an official city landmark. The following month, the businessman Serdar Bilgili sued Shvo over the latter's ownership stake in the Crown Building. Bilgili claimed that he had acquired a one-third interest in Shvo's ownership stake in 2015 and that Shvo had reduced their ownership stakes through a set of capital calls. By the middle of the year, five of the condos had sold for over $50 million. Doronin bought his own hotel's penthouse for $135 million, making it New York City's highest-priced residential sale in 2024. The first resale of an apartment at the Aman New York occurred that July, and all except one of the condos had been sold by the next month. The final unit was sold for $66 million by January 2025. That July, Brookfield refinanced the retail space with a $601 million loan. ==Reception==

Architectural commentary When the Heckscher Building was being planned, the New-York Tribune wrote that the structure exemplified the commercial and architectural changes taking place on Fifth Avenue. while Heckscher himself called it the "tower of trade". The Real Estate Record surmised that the building would serve as "a beautiful background" for Fifth Avenue's mansions. The Guardian described the building as a "lovely slight from all the southern part of Central Park", particularly its golden pinnacle. The writer Willard Gilman Myers wrote that the building's roof had one of New York City's most beautiful pinnacles in New York City and that the structure "soars above the Vanderbilt chateau with a Gallic grace that has little of the heavier beauty of its sisters to the south". Conversely, George Harold Edgell regarded the design as "not wholly successful" because of the excessive emphasis placed on horizontal design elements. Writing retrospectively in 1976, Paul Goldberger said that the building's roof "made it an early and significant presence on the Fifth Avenue skyline". though architect Patricia Conway regarded the gilding as "rather excessive, and not architecturally appropriate". In his 1987 book New York 1930, Robert A. M. Stern wrote that the presence of the Heckscher Building "signaled a new scale of development" along 57th Street. The first edition of the Michelin Keys Guide, in 2024, ranked the Aman New York as a "three-key" hotel, the highest accolade granted by the Michelin Keys Guide. The Aman was one of 11 Michelin three-key hotels across the United States and one of four such hotels in New York City. ==See also==