Pershing Square Building

The Pershing Square Building is at 125 Park Avenue in the Midtown and Murray Hill neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by 42nd Street to the north, Park Avenue to the west, and 41st Street to the south, at the west end of the city block that is also bounded by Lexington Avenue to the east. The rectangular land lot occupies , with a frontage of on Park Avenue and a depth of on 41st and 42nd Streets. Among these were the New York Central Building at 47th Street and Park Avenue, as well as the Grand Central Palace across 42nd Street from the present Pershing Square Building. By 1920, the area had become what The New York Times called "a great civic centre". == Architecture ==

The building was designed in the Romanesque Revival style by the firms of Sloan & Robertson and York & Sawyer. Form John Sloan's plan for the Pershing Square Building called for a U-shaped tower above a five-story rectangular base, used in many other New York City skyscrapers erected before the 1916 Zoning Resolution. Above that would be a 14-story middle section, with a recessed "light court" on the eighth floor, followed by a five-story top section and two recessed attic floors. The original plans called for shops and restaurants in the first floor and basement. The second floor would be high and would be used as a banking floor. The 20 floors above it were to be used as office floors. Sloan also had to design the top floors in order to meet the conditions that the BSA had set in exchange for allowing the Pershing Square Building's zoning variance. For instance, since the cornice could not project more than from the building lot line, Sloan's design incorporated corbelling at the top of the facade, and a setback two-story attic above the 23rd floor. The 24th-floor attic is located about behind the building boundary and mostly consists of one story with a hip roof. There are also gable-roofed 25th-story penthouses at 41st and 42nd Streets. The attics, with their roofs made of red tiles, resembled "a villa on the hilltop", as described by architect Charles Downing Lay. Facade The building facade is clad in beige brick, with elaborate decoration designed by Sloan and produced by the Atlantic Terra Cotta Company. and the unprecedented material usage led the New York City Department of Buildings to publish a special report on the facade. Atlantic Terra Cotta roughened the terracotta pieces before burning them so that they would appear to be a rough surface. The tiles' colors were characterized by Atlantic Terra Cotta's journal as "a soft gray fire-flashed with golden brown". == History ==

In 1913, the Dual Contracts were signed by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT), two companies who operated parts of the present New York City Subway. A set of platforms at Grand Central, now serving the IRT Lexington Avenue Line (), was to be built diagonally under the building site as part of the agreement. At the time, the site under the proposed station was occupied by Grand Union Hotel, which was condemned via eminent domain in February 1914. The condemnation proceedings for the hotel cost $3.5 million (equal to $ million in ). To pay the station's construction cost, the Public Service Commission approved the construction of a 25-story building above the station. By May 1915, the building site had been excavated for the construction of the building. the site above the station was not developed as planned. The 25-story building's site, and the portion of Park Avenue immediately adjacent to it, was renamed Pershing Square in 1919 to honor World War I general John J. Pershing. The site was then proposed for use as an open plaza with a three-story memorial "Victory Hall", but the idea of a victory hall was opposed by Fiorello H. La Guardia, president of the New York City Board of Aldermen. The Transit Commission attempted to sell the building site in May 1920 for $2.8 million (equal to $ million in ), but no one placed a bid. Then in July 1920, a realty consortium headed by investor Henry Mandel offered $2.9 million for the hotel (equal to $ million in ), a proposal that was accepted. Other members of this consortium included the accountant Samuel D. Leidesdorf. Planning and construction (left) and the Pershing Square Building (right) share what was believed to be New York City's tallest party wall The corporation was headed by Leidesdorf. In January 1921, the Pershing Square Building Corporation received title to the site, with conditions that necessitated a subway entrance and a maximum building height and weight. Mandel gave the Bowery Savings Bank the eastern half of the hotel site, which would be developed into an office building at 110 East 42nd Street. including what was believed to be the city's tallest party wall separating two buildings. Mandel hired architect John Sloan to create a design for a building, and Sloan had submitted preliminary plans by May 1921. Though the Fifth Avenue Association filed a complaint with the city's Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA) to enforce the zoning code, Sloan stated that the inclusion of setbacks would be structurally unsafe, expensive, as well as a contravention of the existing agreement. The BSA ruled in favor of the Pershing Square Building Corporation, As such, the Pershing Square Building was the last tall building constructed after the 1916 Zoning Resolution that did not contain setbacks or a front plaza. That month, the opponents appealed the BSA's decision to the statewide Court of Appeals. and the first lessees had already signed for space in the building. Sloan would form a partnership with Thomas Markoe Robertson in 1923, and in addition to co-designing the Pershing Square Building, the pair would design the Pershing Square Building and several other New York City structures, including the Chanin Building and Graybar Building in the Grand Central area. The State Supreme Court subsequently ruled against Frankel. The Pershing Square Building was renamed the Continental Can Building when the American Can Company leased space in the 24th and 25th floors in 1945. and the following year the Leidesdorf estate sold the Pershing Square Building to Prudential Financial. After Suttom NV sold the building in 1994, it passed through numerous ownerships, including GE Capital (1994), 125 Park Avenue LLC (1997); GE Capital subsidiary Watch Holdings LLC (1998); and Sri Six Operating Company (2004). The real estate firm Shorenstein Properties had a stake in Sri Six. SL Green purchased the building in 2010 from Shorenstein Properties. The Pershing Square Building received several renovations, especially in the 1990s and 2000s. The upper floors' masonry and windows were replaced; the ground-level facades at Park Avenue and 42nd Street were renovated; and the lobby was renovated with a new 42nd Street entrance in 2006–2008. In mid-2016, the LPC proposed protecting twelve buildings in East Midtown, including the Graybar Building, in advance of proposed changes to the area's zoning. On November 22, 2016, the LPC designated the Pershing Square Building and ten other nearby buildings as city landmarks. == Tenants ==

, looking toward the western facade A New-York Tribune article in January 1923 stated that, although the Pershing Square Building was not complete yet, its space was 60% leased. At the time, the lessees included International Paper and the Royal Baking Powder Company, as well as York & Sawyer's own offices. Attorneys, realtors, and insurance and investment companies also took space in the building, as did those in the architecture and building construction industry. Besides American Airlines, other airlines such as Trans-Canada Air Lines and Northwest Airlines also rented space in the building. There were numerous tenants who took space in the Pershing Square Building for several decades. These included Pacific Bank, who occupied the second and second-mezzanine floors starting in 1924; and the executive offices of American Airlines, which rented four floors in 1943. From 1945 to 1970, the building was named for the American Can Company, who took up the 24th and 25th floors. The furniture company Haworth moved to the Pershing Square Building in 2007, taking up the former banking floor and airline ticket office on the second floor and mezzanine. == Critical reception ==

The Pershing Square Building's brick-clad facade was unprecedented at the time of its construction. Later reviews were more critical; in 2013, the Real Estate Board of New York published a report claiming that the Pershing Square Building's design "was old-fashioned even before it was finished". Real Estate Weekly said in July 2016, prior to the building's landmark designation that November, that "The building is notably absent from the AIA Guide for New York City", a guidebook of architecturally significant structures in New York City. == References ==