General Electric Building

The General Electric Building occupies the southwestern corner of Lexington Avenue and 51st Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It sits on the northeastern portion of a city block bounded by Park Avenue to the west, 50th Street to the south, Lexington Avenue to the east, and 51st Street to the north. St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church is directly to the west on the same city block, and another office building is to the south. The lots making up the General Electric Building's site were purchased by Frederick and Maximilian Schaefer starting in 1867, and were developed as the Schaefer Brewery in 1878. The Park Avenue railroad tracks, running in an open cut less than a block west of the site, were placed underground as part of the construction of Grand Central Terminal in the early 20th century. The opening of Grand Central Terminal in 1913 spurred development in the area bounded by Lexington Avenue, Madison Avenue, 51st Street, and 42nd Street. St. Bartholomew's Church bought the Schaefer site in 1914. After St. Bartholomew's built its chapter house and garden on the block's southwestern corner, the Schaefer site was the only one on the block that was not developed. ==Architecture==

The General Electric Building was designed by John Walter Cross of Cross & Cross in the Art Deco style with Gothic Revival ornamentation. This contrasted with the firm's earlier designs, which tended to be in the Gothic Revival, Georgian Revival, or Renaissance Revival styles. The building was designed to harmonize with neighboring structures, particularly St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, as well as the since-demolished building of Cathedral High School to the south. There are 50 stories (consisting of 46 office floors and four mechanical floors); the 48th and 49th floors also once contained executive dining rooms. while the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat's Skyscraper Center cites the building as being . Form The building's lowest stories contain elaborate masonry and architectural figural sculpture, with a round corner facing Lexington Avenue and 51st Street. Above a series of gradual setbacks, the building rises into an octagonal brick tower similar to Cross & Cross's earlier design for 20 Exchange Place. It is a stylized Gothic tower, with elaborate Art Deco decorations of lightning bolts showing the power of electricity. According to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, the base and tower form "one of the most expressive skyscrapers of its era". Between the 13th and 25th stories, the building contains shallow setbacks on each elevation, The building's tower rises 25 stories above these setbacks. Brick in orange, tawny, and buff colors was used throughout the facade. The bricks, laid out randomly in American bond, create from a distance the impression of a rich bronze color. The terracotta on the upper stories was sprayed with fourteen-carat gold. The detail of the facade wraps around to its rear elevations as well. The design is emphasized by rounded vertical piers, which separate the facade into bays, and recessed spandrels, which separate the windows between each floor. The piers rise above and between the openings of the first floor. The pediments above the main entrance and freight entrance are more elaborate. The building's northeast corner, facing Lexington Avenue and 51st Street contains a more ornate design than the rest of the facade, as it was intended to lead to a bank space on the first floor. At ground level, there is a non-structural buttress made of marble, with elaborate pediments above. The buttress consists of two bays, one facing each street, and is supported by a pier at the corner. Upper stories Above the 12th floor, the building's northeast corner contains a flat chamfer on each of the setback portions between the 12th and 21st floors. There are also three sculptures of "electric spirits" on the northeast corner: at the 12th floor, between the 23rd and 25th floors, and between the 34th and 35th floors. Because of the building's massing, these "electric spirits" are offset from the ground-level entrance. Each of the figures depicts a deity with "forked lightning" above them. The building's crown contains Gothic tracery touched with gold. although the Skyscraper Center gives the gross floor area as . Lobby There is a vestibule inside the Lexington Avenue entrance, which contains a polished granite floor. Similar to the exterior, the walls of the vestibule consist of a red marble surface over a red-granite base. The side walls have decorative radiator grilles containing tall rectangles with angular tops. Atop the walls of the vestibule is a frieze consisting of a wave mosaic between beige marble bands; it is interrupted by two slightly projecting stones that serve as reflectors. Metal sconces, shaped like torches, are placed on the walls below the frieze. The vestibule and the building's lobby are separated by a marble wall. A metal revolving door flanked by two smaller doors leads to the lobby, while a transom window and decorative metal grille are above these doors. John Cross had intended the design of the lobby to give off an impression of "vibrant energy". The lobby is a long, rectangular space extending west from the Lexington Avenue vestibule. The walls are made of convex pink marble panels with darker red veins, placed over a base made of white-veined black marble. The walls are topped by wave friezes and torch-shaped sconces, similar to those in the vestibule, although the lobby's western wall does not have a wave frieze. Cross likened the illumination of the pink-marble walls to broadcast stations, while he described the triangular cut-outs on the ceiling as symbolizing "the directness and penetration of radio itself". The lobby's western wall contains an opening that is closed-off by a metal Art Deco screen; this opening is topped by a decorative clock with a metal frame and a red-marble face. On the western side of the ground floor, south of the lobby, is an area with plain terrazzo floors and metal sconces; this space has a stairway to the basement. Other floors The ten elevators from the ground-floor lobby descend to the basement lobby, which contains a simpler design compared with the main lobby. The terrazzo floor is checkered, the walls are made of pink marble slabs, and the elevators contain their original floor indicators. Adjacent to the basement lobby is an auditorium with a plain sloped plaster ceiling and white walls, as well as a small stage. The passageway was made of marble with aluminum storefronts. A new street entrance opened in 1965, and the passageway was sealed off with a marble-clad partition. Raymond Hood and J. André Fouilhoux designed a "technologically advanced" conference room after GE moved into the building, which combined neon and mercury vapor lights to provide consistent indirect illumination. The conference room no longer exists. ==History==

Planning In September 1929, Tishman Realty & Construction acquired plots at the southwestern corner of Lexington Avenue and 51st Street, passing it to the Bartholomew Building Corporation through intermediary Stanhope Estates Inc. The large corner lot was purchased from the Norko Realty Company and Julian Tishman & Sons, as well as two smaller lots on 51st Street from the Nichols Holding Company. The next month, the Bartholomew Building Corporation bought the land from Tishman. RCA was expected to be one of the major tenants, although the Bartholomew Building Corporation originally refused to confirm this fact. RCA had purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1929, becoming known as RCA Victor. A construction contract was immediately let to the A. L. Hartridge Company. Raymond Hood, one of the architects involved in the construction of Rockefeller Center, suggested negotiating with RCA and its subsidiaries to build a mass media entertainment complex there. RCA's founder and GE's chairman, Owen D. Young, was amenable to the proposal. At the time, RCA was seeking more independence from the operations of GE, and three months after David Sarnoff became president of RCA in January 1930, the two companies reached an agreement to separate their operations. As part of that agreement, RCA gave some of its stock and the then-under-construction RCA Victor Building to GE, and the RCA Victor Building became known as the General Electric Building. While the facade's decorative elements were originally planned to be made of limestone, this was swapped with terracotta, and limestone was only used between the 34th and 35th floors. The Bartholomew Building Corporation conveyed the building's leasehold to RCA on January 13, 1931, and property title passed to GE ten days afterward. Construction was completed at the end of 1931. RCA had rented ten floors in January 1931, but later modified the lease to occupy only three floors. Another long-term lessee was Childs Restaurants, who signed a 21-year lease for the ground-level retail space in July 1931. Other large companies took space at the building in its first year, including Seversky Aircraft, the White Sewing Machine Company, the National Civic Federation, and the national headquarters of the Girl Scouts of the USA. By late 1932, RCA and GE finalized an agreement in which RCA would move to Rockefeller Center and GE would take the Lexington Avenue building. RCA moved its offices out of 570 Lexington Avenue in June 1933 with the opening of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. In July and August 1933, GE moved its headquarters to the building. With this move, along with the opening of the adjacent Lexington Avenue station on the Independent Subway System's Queens Boulevard Line (now the ) the president of the Lexington Avenue Civic Association said that the "transformation" of the surrounding stretch of Lexington Avenue had been completed. Architects Pruitt & Brown filed plans in January 1935 to convert the top two floors into a clubhouse for the Elfun Society, a group of GE executives. By that year, 75% of space in the building was occupied, despite the economic downturn caused by the Great Depression. That July, the dining rooms on the 48th and 49th floors were heavily damaged in a fire, the highest ever fought by the New York City Fire Department at the time. Later in the 1930s, the Citizen Savings Bank opened a bank branch in the building. Other large tenants in the 1940s and 1950s included attorneys Reed, Crane De Give, as well as the Manhattan Savings Bank. 1960s to 1980s An "automatic cafeteria" without a kitchen opened in the General Electric Building in 1961. The building's lights were replaced three years later, and GE moved some of its offices to two other Midtown buildings. By the early 1970s, GE considered constructing a new headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut. The new headquarters opened in 1974, and the Canadian offices of GE moved to the space that the executive offices had vacated at 570 Lexington Avenue. In subsequent years, much of 570 Lexington Avenue's space subsequently became vacant. between 1982 and 1988, the building's crown was not illuminated when renovation was nearly complete. Further confusing the situation, 30 Rockefeller Plaza's former name had been the RCA Building, but 570 Lexington Avenue had also been known by that name during its construction. 1990s to present GE donated 570 Lexington Avenue to Columbia University in 1993, gaining a $40 million tax deduction. The university formed a joint venture with Bernard H. Mendik's Mendik Company and Quantum Realty Partners, and planned a renovation to attract tenants. By the end of 1995, Mendik and Quantum Realty were leasing out space within 570 Lexington Avenue. At the time, the building's yearly asking prices per square foot were described as being barely market rate, with being asked on the lower floors, and for the upper floors. Additionally, 570 Lexington Avenue was not located on such a prestigious street, and its design precluded modifications such as dropped ceilings, raised floors, or column removals. Vornado Realty Trust bought Mendik's company in 1997 and increased its ownership stake in 570 Lexington Avenue to a half stake in 1998. The Feil Organization bought the building in February 2001 for $120 million. By the 2010s, the building's tenants included Cornell University, Cornwall Capital, Asset.tv, Air India, and the Roosevelt Institute. Additionally, in 2018, Urbanspace opened a three-story food hall in the building's base. == Impact ==

Reception At the time of its completion, the General Electric Building was characterized as being in a Gothic style, as the term "Art Deco" had not become popularized yet. By the late 20th century, the General Electric Building was being described as Art Deco. Reviews of the design were mostly positive. While Chappell wrote that the General Electric Building was "a little too consciously picturesque", he admired the building's rounded corner. According to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), the building is a "major example" of Art Deco architecture and its style is "both symbolic and expressive of the building's function". Architecture writer Carter B. Horsley stated that the building's design was an "unofficial campanile to the church" immediately behind. Later reviews continued to praise the design. Robert A. M. Stern wrote in his 1987 book New York 1930, "Not only was its base a sophisticated piece of urban infill, but its tower was a jewel in New York's skyscraper crown." According to Peter Pennoyer, the building was distinctive "not only in its powerful and sculptural massing but also in its colorful and adept combination of the Gothic and Art Deco styles". Landmark designations The building's exterior was designated a New York City landmark by the LPC in 1985. Although separate "interior landmark" designations existed, the lobby was not designated as a landmark because of opposition from General Electric. Speaking about the landmark designations of the General Electric Building and the neighboring Waldorf Astoria and St. Bartholomew's Church, Frank Mahan of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill said the designations "preserved a unique urban composition with a spiraling upward thrust". ==See also==