One Astor Plaza

One Astor Plaza is at 1515 Broadway, along Times Square, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, U.S. While the building carries a Broadway address, it is actually on the west side of Seventh Avenue. but the adjoining section of Broadway was converted into a permanent pedestrian plaza in the 2010s. One Astor Plaza's rectangular land lot is bounded by Times Square to the east, 45th Street to the north, Shubert Alley to the west, and 44th Street to the south. The lot spans , with a frontage of on Times Square and on 44th and 45th Streets. Shubert Alley, which covers of the land lot, is a private passageway shared with the Shubert Organization. The surrounding area is part of Manhattan's Theater District and contains many Broadway theatres. The site had contained the eleven-story Hotel Astor, which had been designed by Clinton & Russell in a Beaux-Arts style and opened in 1904 with 1,000 guest rooms. The hotel had contained a red-brick facade, a mansard roof, and a lobby with a 22-foot-high colonnade. According to architecture writer Robert A. M. Stern, the Astor inspired "a new species of popular hotels that soon clustered around Times Square, vast amusement palaces that catered to crowds with scenographic interiors that mirrored the theatricality of the Great White Way." ==Architecture==

One Astor Plaza was developed by the Sam Minskoff and Sons company and designed by Kahn and Jacobs, with Der Scutt as the principal architect. In addition, Ben Schlanger was hired as a consultant for the design of two theaters in the building: the Minskoff Theatre, a Broadway house on the third floor, and the Loews Astor Plaza (now the Palladium Times Square), originally a movie house in the basement. The building has 54 stories and measures to its pinnacle. Form and facade '' in the Uptown Studio One Astor Plaza consists of a 54-story office tower above a low base. The tower stories are set back from Broadway. Under normal zoning regulations, the maximum floor area ratio (FAR) for any building on the tower's site was 15, but the developers received two bonuses of 20 percent each, bringing the FAR to 21.6. The developers had to include privately owned public space at the building's base for the first bonus, and they built a new theater for the second bonus. The Minskoff Theatre was among the first theaters built under a 1968 regulation that allowed office buildings to include a legitimate theater in exchange for additional floor area. The bonus applied only to Broadway theaters; the movie theater in the basement did not provide any FAR bonus for the building. The second-floor studios contain full-height windows facing Times Square. Each pair of signs consists of a primary display facing each intersection, used for advertising, and a smaller display facing Times Square's western sidewalk, used for displaying show information for Minskoff Theatre. The primary displays measure high by wide, while the smaller displays are 48 feet high by wide. The shafts were overlaid by aluminum panels during KPF's 2008 renovation. Structural features One Astor Plaza's superstructure is made of steel floor spans around a concrete core. It opened on June 26, 1974, and was the city's largest capacity cinema at 1,440 and was intended to show the first runs of major films. The venue was originally sponsored by Nokia, and PlayStation in 2015. The PlayStation Theater closed on December 31, 2019, and it reopened as the Palladium Times Square event venue in 2020. At the first floor, there is a covered arcade under the center of the building, connecting 44th and 45th Streets. The space covers . which is accessed primarily by escalators. From 1982 to 1986, the arcade also contained a museum dedicated to the history of Broadway theatre, including photographs and memorabilia. The ground level also contains retailers. During the 2000s and 2010s, these included a Bank of America branch with three floor-to-ceiling stock ticker signs; a Aeropostale clothing store; an Oakley, Inc. sports accessories store; and a Swatch watch store. Facing Shubert Alley was an Italian restaurant called Cucina and a Junior's restaurant. , Oakley, Kiko Milano, and Swatch were among the retail tenants. Second-floor studios Originally, the second floor was occupied by a branch of the Bankers Trust bank. The branch adjoined the building's main lobby and contained a domed ceiling, as well as design features reminiscent of early-20th-century banks. The bank's office also contained a glass enclosure with an escalator between the lobby and the Minskoff Theatre, as well as a vault. By the 1990s, this level served as offices for Viacom's human-resources department. Viacom repurposed the space as a television studio for MTV Networks, launching operations in 1997. According to MTV president Judy McGrath, the studio had full-height windows on Times Square because "We want to get people to feel what it's like to be in New York, to be part of that incredible playground down there". The MTV broadcasting complex initially consisted of three studios. The largest was the Uptown Studio, which had the full-height windows on Times Square and was used by Total Request Live. Two smaller studios, the Midtown Studio and the Downtown Studio, were used for MTV News and smaller programs. Despite reports that MTV planned to completely vacate its studio space, Viacom renewed its lease for a smaller portion of the space in late 2010. The remaining portion was leased to Aeropostale, which operated in the space from 2010 Viacom re-leased the Aeropostale space in 2017 in preparation for its relaunch of TRL. In 2020, after CBS Corporation and Viacom merged again, CBS News used part of the MTV Studios space for its coverage of the 2020 presidential election; the windows were blanked out for security reasons. In September 2021, CBS's new morning show CBS Mornings premiered in a portion of the MTV Studios space (replacing CBS This Morning, which aired from the CBS Broadcast Center), using a modified version of the election set. The studio was christened "Studio 1515" in reference to the building's address. In 2025, CBS Mornings moved back to CBS Broadcast Center. Third floor One Astor Plaza's Broadway theater, Minskoff Theatre, was named after the building's developers and is on the building's third floor. with Ben Schlanger as a consulting architect. The Minskoff, Gershwin, Circle in the Square, and American Place theaters were all constructed under the Special Theater District amendment of 1967 as a way to give their respective developers additional floor area. The escalators from the building's ground-story arcade lead to the third-floor grand foyer, where additional escalators lead to the auditorium seating. Formerly, the third floor also contained the Minskoff Recording Studios, which opened in 1976. Originally, the studios ranged in size from to . Each studio was soundproofed, enabling numerous tenants to use the studios simultaneously. These studios hosted rehearsals for many large Broadway musicals, as they were the only studios in the area that could accommodate large Broadway productions. By the late 1980s, the studio sizes ranged from for studio 7 to for studio 3. Rental rates for the studios varied depending on the studios' sizes, with studio 7 charging $10 an hour and studio 3 charging $5 per hour, although discounted rates were charged for eight-hour and week-long rentals. Despite the studios' popularity, they closed in 1989 due to rising rents. ==History==

After World War II, development of theaters around Times Square stalled, and the area began to evolve into a business district. The first proposal to convert the Astor Hotel site to offices had been put forth in 1947, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had unsuccessfully proposed leasing the entire hotel for its own offices. When real estate developers Webb and Knapp leased the hotel in 1954, they pledged to keep the hotel operating. Astor Associates bought the hotel in 1958 and took over operation after Webb and Knapp went bankrupt in 1965. Webb and Knapp's former president William Zeckendorf formed Place de L'Etoile Inc. in December 1965, seeking to buy the Astor Hotel, but this was unsuccessful. Planning Initial plans In January 1966, Sam Minskoff and Sons paid $10.5 million for the Hotel Astor and the eastern section of Shubert Alley, with plans to erect a 40-story office building on the site. At the time, a tax assessment valued the land at $8.4 million. The Minskoffs hired Kahn and Jacobs as the architects in May 1966, and the hotel was closed on June 30, 1966, the day before Minskoff & Sons took title to the site. The old hotel's furnishings were sold off in October 1966. The Minskoffs demolished the rear of the hotel first because there was a restaurant at the front of the hotel, whose lease did not expire until 1967. The Hercules Wrecking Corporation began demolishing the hotel in January 1967, anticipating to complete the job within five months. The hotel was not completely demolished until February 1968. In January 1967, Kahn and Jacobs announced that Minskoff's tower, One Astor Plaza, would be 50 stories tall with a facade of stone and tinted glass. The Minskoffs requested zoning amendments to allow the construction of an office building, as well as a modification of the site's sky exposure plane to maximize the amount of office space that faced Broadway. Consequently, the plans for One Astor Plaza initially did not include a theater. Though Weinstein said he initially remembered "feeling very depressed" at the Minskoffs' tower-with-theater plans, Elliott was "elated", saying: "I think you guys have got your theater". When Weinstein expressed his doubts about the building's floor area, Elliott responded: "Oh, that. That just shows they're ready to negotiate." The proposed legislation would directly allow theaters in One Astor Plaza and the Uris Building, which would be the first completely new Broadway theaters since the Mark Hellinger Theatre was completed in 1930. The Minskoffs were allowed to build 47 stories as-of-right, or without any zoning bonuses, but the Minskoffs could add in exchange for building a Broadway theater. and the New York City Board of Estimate gave final approval to the proposal the next month. As planning progressed, members of the Broadway-theatre industry expressed concerns that theatrical experts had not been consulted in the design of One Astor Plaza's theater. The Lehman Brothers became partners in One Astor Plaza in March 1968. At the time, the vacant site was being used for parking, since the Minskoffs were requesting city approval for another modification that would allow a movie theater to be built in the basement. The CPC approved the theater over the Shuberts' objections, as did the Board of Estimate. In the meantime, the vacant lot was used in September 1968 for a benefit for the film Funny Girl, hosted by Barbra Streisand. Albert W. Selden had tentatively agreed to lease the Broadway theater in One Astor Plaza. The building was to contain across 54 floors, including three restaurants and the two theaters. Construction Mayor Lindsay attended the groundbreaking ceremony for One Astor Plaza on October 10, 1968. One Astor Plaza was one of 23 major office projects underway in New York City at the time. During excavation, the contractors bored holes up to deep, then placed dynamite sticks in the holes, covering the openings with blasting mats before detonating the dynamite. As part of an agreement with the Shubert Organization, the blasts did not occur when there were matinee performances at the Shubert Theatre and other nearby theaters. The 1,562-seat movie theater was leased in January 1969 by Walter Reade, who also planned to operate the fourth through ninth floors of offices. Fawcett Publications signed a long-term lease for three floors in One Astor Plaza that February, followed the next month by Quality Bakers of America's lease of two floors. Work on One Astor Plaza temporarily stopped in July 1969 due to a labor strike. The project faced some delays due to the inclusion of the Broadway theater at the building's base, as well as rising costs and decreasing demand for office space. Although Minskoff & Sons president Jerome Minskoff had agreed to the theater as "our way of paying the city back", he said this had increased costs by up to 30 percent, from $55 to $70 million. and glass fell from the building during two separate incidents that November, when facade installation was progressing on the lower stories. Several glass panes fell on November 5, and a worker was injured on November 29 when glass panes fell during a heavy wind. but the city's acting buildings commissioner could not find a clear cause for the falling glass. By 1970, a combined of office space was being developed along Broadway in Midtown, much of which stood vacant due to a slowdown in office leasing. W. T. Grant became the building's largest tenant in December 1970, leasing , including the entire 40th through 53rd floors. In exchange, One Astor Plaza would be formally known as the W. T. Grant Building, and the company's name would be placed in large letters atop the building. Simultaneously, the Minskoffs agreed to pay off the lease on W. T. Grant's existing office space at 1441 Broadway. The next month, the Walter Reade Organization sought to sublet all six floors of its own space. Bankers Trust leased a bank branch on the second story in March 1971. that rate had increased to 87 percent by the next month. Completion and early years Fawcett Publications was the first tenant at the building, moving into the 12th through 16th floors The building was planned to be formally renamed that November when W. T. Grant moved in, but the company's relocation into the building was then delayed to mid-1972. Among these issues was Reade's concern that the auditorium needed to be insulated from the adjacent subway tunnels. Shortly after the building was completed, a window-washing scaffold fell from One Astor Plaza's facade in March 1972, killing two workers. The building's parking garage and three retail stores were leased in early 1972. Billboard Publications, which leased one floor; and accounting firm Clarence Rainess & Co., which leased one and a half floors. By January 1973, the Minskoff was ready to open, but the basement cinema had not even been furnished yet because of continuing disputes over subway soundproofing. The Minskoff Theatre officially opened on March 13, 1973. Reade ended his lease of the basement movie theater the next month, citing financial difficulties. Further issues concerned the building's valuation, which had been reduced from $45.3 to $40.8 million during 1971–1972; the reduction had been granted because the Minskoffs falsely stated that One Astor Plaza was mostly vacant. The Loews movie chain leased the basement movie theater in April 1974, One Astor Plaza's anchor tenant W. T. Grant had gone bankrupt by late 1975 and initially planned to downsize to four and a half floors. However, W. T. Grant subsequently decided to leave the building altogether, so the company's signage was removed from One Astor Plaza in March 1976. The third floor was also reconstructed in 1976 to accommodate the Minskoff Recording Studios. The New York Telephone Company took another four floors in May 1979. By then, most of the building's vacant space had been filled; the other tenants included CBS and the New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC). A theater museum was also being planned for the arcade at the time. One Astor Plaza was fully rented by 1980. Two years later, the Museum of the City of New York opened a museum in the ground-story arcade, dedicated to the history of Broadway theater. $202 million, or $210 million. The sale included a contract between the Minskoffs and a joint venture of The Related Companies and Shearson/American Express, which in turn sold its contract to Tishman Speyer and Equitable. At the time, the real estate market in New York City was growing, and Equitable had projected that the building would generate $40 million in gross income by 1991. The 25 limited partners, who gave a combined $77 million, were primarily executives at Bear Stearns. One Astor Plaza needed to be renovated to comply with modern building codes, including the addition of fire sprinklers and the removal of asbestos. The average rent for offices at One Astor Plaza was , far below the market rate, but Tishman Speyer and Equitable had planned to upgrade the building and raise rents. Consequently, the Minskoff Recording Studios were nearly evicted in October 1984, The theater museum in the ground-story arcade was closed in 1986 due to low attendance. and they ultimately closed the next year. Bankruptcy and improvements Tishman Speyer then renovated the lobby and elevators in 1989. The same year, Viacom International Inc. negotiated to lease several stories in One Astor Plaza for 20 years. The company planned to occupy initially, with an option to expand by another . 1515 Broadway Associates LP filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October 1990, shortly after Tishman Speyer gave up its general-partnership interest. Manufacturers Hanover also claimed that Tishman Speyer's chief executive, Gerald Speyer, had opposed a bankruptcy proceeding. Shortly after the court hearing, Manufacturers Hanover and Equitable agreed to a tentative settlement in which Equitable would extend a $95 million line of credit to the limited partners. In exchange, Manufacturers Hanover's lawsuit and Equitable's Chapter 11 filing would be withdrawn. The bankruptcy filing was thus dropped in December 1991. Throughout these legal disputes, Equitable continued to maintain the building's services and attempted to not only retain existing occupants but also attract new tenants by providing favorable concessions. and an existing merchandising tenant expanded its space in the building at a lower rental rate. Additionally, Equitable covered the brokers' fees and tenant-improvement charges for new tenants for several years. Equitable's success in leasing One Astor Plaza was also influenced by the lack of tenants at two newer developments nearby, 1540 and 1585 Broadway, during the early 1990s. Following Viacom's acquisition, Paramount relocated from 15 Columbus Circle to One Astor Plaza, and the expanded Viacom took up 25 floors, housing subsidiaries such as Nickelodeon and MTV in the building. Viacom thus became the tower's largest tenant, occupying , with options to take other floors as existing tenants' leases expired. Equitable had been able to remove the asbestos and rent nearly all the space at rates of around . The state UDC, which had occupied nine floors, left the building in the following years as Viacom continued to expand. In September 1997, MTV opened studios at One Astor Plaza's second floor after an $8 million renovation. CBS and Viacom announced in 1999 that they would merge, and Viacom renewed its lease at One Astor Plaza, though the company planned to sell CBS's nearby headquarters, the CBS Building. By early 2001, Viacom had planned to buy One Astor Plaza in conjunction with its sale of the CBS Building. That August, Equitable hired Goldman Sachs to market One Astor Plaza; Equitable had rejected an offer to swap One Astor Plaza for the CBS Building directly because the latter building was worth much less. The transaction was ultimately canceled in November 2001. This was attributed in part to Viacom's demand that any buyer first acquire One Astor Plaza and then swap that for the CBS Building and cash; such a transaction would enable Viacom to avoid paying estate transfer taxes on the transaction. SL Green ownership 2000s In March 2002, a joint venture led by SL Green Realty acquired One Astor Plaza for approximately $480 million, the city's largest real-estate transaction since the September 11 attacks. SL Green had a 55 percent ownership stake while its partner SITQ Immobilier (a subsidiary of Canadian pension fund CDPQ), had the remaining 45 percent. SL Green was required to have terrorism insurance on the building, and the sale demonstrated that large buildings such as One Astor Plaza could obtain such insurance. SL Green chairman Stephen L. Green considered One Astor Plaza a "core building" to his portfolio but, according to ''Crain's New York'' magazine, those in the real estate industry believed that Green had overvalued the building. Alliance Building Service, operated by Green's son Gary, was hired to provide cleaning and security services for the building. After acquiring the building, SL Green sought to replace five storefronts on Broadway with one large retailer. SL Green also bought out the lease of the Loews Astor Plaza movie theater and closed it in 2004; By 2008, the downsized Viacom was still the largest office tenant of One Astor Plaza, occupying ; the building only had available for lease. Viacom's leases were scheduled to expire within two years, and the company was moving some divisions elsewhere, including Comedy Central. extending it by five years. The same year, SL Green also hired KPF to renovate the lobby and facade to make the building compliant with LEED Silver green building standards. Though other tenants continued to occupy the building, including law firms, Times Square was no longer appealing to small tenants by then because of the high rents. SL Green refinanced 1515 Broadway for $475 million in 2010, and CDPQ sold its stake in the tower to SL Green the next year. In April 2012, Viacom signed a lease to take over all at 1515 Broadway through 2031, taking the remaining space as other tenants' leases expired. This was the fourth-largest lease in New York City history SL Green also agreed to upgrade 1515 Broadway for Viacom and installed three-story-tall advertising screens on the Times Square facade in 2013; SL Green was looking to sell a minority stake in the building by 2017, and the China Investment Corporation reportedly expressed interest. That November, Allianz bought a 43 percent ownership stake and some of the debt in a deal that valued 1515 Broadway at $1.95 billion. At the time, Viacom occupied 85 percent of the building. After Viacom merged back into CBS Corporation in 2019, ViacomCBS (later Paramount Global) retained offices at One Astor Plaza. CBS News converted part of the MTV Studios space into a studio. Paramount Global fired hundreds of the building's employees in mid-2024. Paramount Global began looking to sublease at 1515 Broadway in 2025 after downsizing its workforce. Paramount merged with Skydance Media in 2025 to form Paramount Skydance Corporation, whose corporate headquarters were moved to Los Angeles. Caesar's Palace Times Square proposal New York state officials announced in April 2022 that they would issue three casino licenses in Downstate New York. Following this announcement, SL Green proposed constructing a casino at 1515 Broadway to attract tourists; the casino would have 992 hotel rooms. In October 2022, SL Green and casino operator Caesars Entertainment jointly submitted a formal proposal for a casino in the building. The bid was also sponsored by Roc Nation and mayor Eric Adams's former chief of staff Frank Carone. Broadway theatrical trade association The Broadway League expressed opposition to the casino, while trade union Actors' Equity Association supported the plan. The project received support from 17 trade unions; the Wyndham Hotels & Resorts chain; the operators of the Sony Hall and Town Hall theaters; and local property owners. If Caesars, SL Green, and Roc Nation received a casino license, SL Green chief executive Marc Holliday stood to earn $10 million. In addition, the partnership planned to spend $250 million on quality-of-life improvements to the surrounding neighborhood, including $5 million for the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center. It also planned to give $22.5 million to the West Side Community Fund and sell shares in the casino to small investors. The proposed casino resort would have had 992 hotel rooms and of casino space. A slow environmental review process could have caused the proposed resort to be disqualified as final bids were due by June 2025, but SL Green has stated that they will meet the deadline for the completion of the environmental review. Caesar's submitted their bid for a commercial casino license on June 27, 2025. A few weeks later, renderings were released showing what the interior of the resort may look like if the bid is approved. Holliday continued to advocate for a casino approval. The three licenses ultimately were granted to casinos in Queens and the Bronx, and Holliday instead began advocating to convert the building into an entertainment complex with a hotel. == Reception ==

One Astor Plaza's construction had spurred developers to acquire several buildings around Times Square. When One Astor Plaza was completed, city officials had expressed hope that the building would precipitate the transformation of Times Square into an entertainment hub. This did not happen immediately, leading architectural writer Robert A. M. Stern to write that "Times Square somehow seemed all the more tawdry for its overscaled, underembellished corporate guest", One Astor Plaza. In 1985, New York Times architectural critic Paul Goldberger wrote that the under-construction Marriott Marquis hotel, One Astor Plaza, Paramount Plaza, and four planned towers at Times Square's south end were "actively destroy[ing] something that is turning out to be far more fragile than we had once believed—that rough-and-tumble honky-tonk that is the physical essence of Times Square". After Caesars Entertainment's casino bid was announced, Karrie Jacobs of Curbed wrote in 2023: "It's fitting that 1515 Broadway, designed by architect Der Scutt (who later designed Trump Tower), was the leading edge of a '60s push to reinvent Times Square." At an exhibition of New York City buildings in 1999, New York Times critic Herbert Muschamp said: "No one needs additional reason to dislike 1515 Broadway, the fin-topped office building between 44th and 45th Streets that replaced the legendary Astor Hotel." According to C. Ray Smith, the asymmetrical shafts of the facade were characteristic of "the new design" character of the 1970s, contrasting with previous symmetrical designs. Jo Mielziner said the large trusses above the Minskoff's roof provided "a clear example of what expense a builder is willing to go to get that extra rentable space". ==See also==