1740 Broadway (New York City, New York)

 office building, high-rise, Streamline Moderne (architecture), 1950_construction

375-foot, 27-story streamline moderne-style office building completed in 1950. Designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates as the headquarters of the Mutual of New York Group, the former MONY building was sold in 1997. Its most famous attribute was once a sign at the top of its facade which advertised for Mutual of New York. The first version spelled out the entire name, with the first letter of each of the words in it (MONY) being red neon lighting which was twice the size of the rest. It was in this form that the sign served as both the inspiration for Tommy James and the Shondells' 1968 hit single "Mony Mony". The subsequent version was the corporate logo, which was the insurance company's acronym with a dollar sign inside the "O." The MONY sign was removed by Vornado in December 2007, and replaced with "1740" to reflect its street address. The numerals, 8 1⁄2 feet tall and in Futura typeface, are illuminated at night by white light-emitting diodes.

Perched on the roof is the Weather Star, a 150-foot tower of lights topped with a star which was built by Artkraft Strauss. The star was green if the following day's weather forecast was fair, orange for cloudy, flashing orange for rain and flashing white for snow. The direction the lights on the tower moved depended on whether the temperatures were expected to rise or fall; absence of movement meant no change. The Weather Star is still operable, but it's no longer used for meteorological forecasting purposes. At the base of the tower is a four-sided electronic digital board that has always displayed the current time and temperature.

The building is clad in limestone above a grey granite ground floor. Along Broadway there are four bays of plate-glass storefronts at the north end; a 2-story granite wall with a rounded end separates the north end from the set-back portion to the south, which has four bays of double-height glass wall enclosing the lobby. There are two revolving doors in the 2nd bay of the glass wall, and a stainless steel canopy angles back from north to south, following the line of Broadway. There are three more bays of storefronts at the south end, set further back. Thus, the three main masses at the lower floors follow the line of Broadway by the two setbacks.

The limestone cladding of the upper floors is broken in Rockefeller Center-style by the darker stripes of windows and grey metal spandrels, two to each corresponding ground-floor bay; the spandrels are vertically ribbed. The north and south sections both set back above the 12th floor, with the middle section setting back above the 17th.

The ground floor on the north facade along 56th Street has wide plate-glass storefronts, and a secondary entrance at the east end, framed in stainless-steel. The upper floors span a total of 16 bays of single-windows, with the eastern six at the 2nd floor replaced by metal vent grilles. The five eastern bays set back above the 8th floor, the next three bays above the 10th, and the rest of the north facade above the 12th, matching the setback of the north section on the west facade. There are additional setbacks above the 17th, 21st, and 26th floors.

The ground floor on the south facade along 55th Street has two storefronts at the west end, next to a wide loading dock with a roll-down metal gate. The east end has a metal service door and a narrower loading dock. This facade spans 13 bays on the upper floors, with the eastern six windows on the 2nd floor again replaced by metal vent grilles. There are setbacks on the upper floors at the same levels as on the north elevation. The Weather Star rises from the center of the upper roof. The ground floor is occupied by Iris restaurant, a Citibank branch, Sweetgreen restaurant, and Sugarfish by Sushi Nozawa.

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