500 Fifth Avenue (New York City, New York)

 office building, skyscraper, Art Deco (architecture)

709-foot, 58-story Art-Deco office building completed in 1931 for Walter J. Salmon. Designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon with structural elements by the Guastavino Fireproof Tile Co. for offices of national railroads; later it became a center for international airlines. The building is asymmetrically massed with setbacks at the 18th, 22nd, and 25th stories on Fifth Avenue and a recessed light court beginning at the 8th story and setbacks at the 23rd, 28th, and 34th stories on West 42nd Street. Sheathed in limestone, terra-cotta, and buff brick, the facades are enriched with carefully scaled Art-Deco motifs, which accentuate the building’s sculptural massing and emphasize its verticality.

The east facade on the avenue is five bays wide, the 2nd bay from the south being wider. The south facade on 42nd Street spans 11 bays, with a narrow bay at the east end, and a wider bay at the west end, which sets back above the 6th floor, creating a separation between the neighboring Salmon Tower and 500 Fifth Avenue.

On the Fifth Avenue facade the limestone and black granite main entrance is treated as a pylon framed by stylized gilded palmettos and capped by an allegorical bas-relief by sculptor Edmond Amateis, of a Grecian woman holding a staff with a winged sun disc and kneeling beside a model of the building itself, an allegorical representation of the “genius of the modern skyscraper.” The metal-and-glass main entrance door is deeply recessed and has returns of polished stone or metal. There are pendant and wall-mounted light fixtures within the recess of main entrance, and light fixtures and flag poles flanking the main entrance. There is a freight entrance in the 7th bay on 42nd Street; the rest of the bays have storefronts that retain their original patinated metal cornice with chevron motifs.

On the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors, limestone piers decorated with channeling and abstracted frond and scroll motifs and light-green metal spandrels decorated with folds and chevrons reflect Art-Deco’s affinity for stylized geometric forms. These floors are dominated by large tripartite show-windows. On the buff-brick mid-section and tower the windows are arranged into paired and triple groups separated by projecting piers, with the major piers enhanced by vertical channeling; in the center bays on 42nd Street and in the two window bays over the main entry, the terra-cotta spandrel panels are dark gray in color and angle forward; seen from a distance the dark color of the spandrels merges with the dark color of the window frames to create a series of vertical stripes that rise unbroken to the roof line; this striped effect is continued on the back (north) elevation where the large expanse of brick wall enclosing the elevators and utilities is articulated with three uninterrupted channels filled with strips of dark gray terra-cotta; crowning the setbacks and tower are a series of angled brick and terra-cotta panels decorated with chevrons that read as pleated cresting against the skyline.

The flat crown was once a prominent building feature, but is now just an exposed cooling tower. Inside, the lobby is almost shorn of ornaments save for the Guastavino ceiling. The walls inside consist of pink-gray matched marble with little trim, under recessed lights. The only historicist touch is a pair of griffins that support the lobby clock.

The ground floor is occupied by Zara apparel, and Chipotle Mexican Grill.

s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/2427.pdf\
www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/realestate/30scap.html?ugrp=...
backlot.smugmug.com/Unique-Spaces/500-5th-Ave-Midtown