310 Fifth Avenue

 store / shop, office building, interesting place

7-story office building originally completed in 1924. Designed by Charles H. Higgins for IBM, it housed the fledgling company's original New York showroom at the ground floor. Items sold by IBM at the time and displayed in the show window included card recorders, meat grinders, dial recorders, coffee grinders, computing parcel post scales, Type A time stamps and various pieces of punched card equipment.

The building was given a new, modern facade in the 1960s, with polished grey granite framing a curtain wall of silver metal spandrels and framing around four dark-tinted windows at each floor. There are four small, square windows at the bottom of the curtain wall, allowing extra light into the ground-floor spaces.

The ground floor has a recessed entry on the right, and a wood-and-glass storefront on the left, occupied by JJ Hat Center. The company was originally called Young's Stetson Hats, and was founded the same year as IBM, in 1911. The name changed to JJ Hat Center in the '60s and the company moved into the former IBM building's space on the ground floor, following its renovation.

www.jjhatcenter.com/
www.jjhatcenter.com/blogs/news/8401555-j-j-hat-center-b...
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