11-25 Madison Avenue (New York City, New York)

USA / New Jersey / West New York / New York City, New York / Madison Avenue, 11-25
 office building, skyscraper, Art Nouveau / Jugendstil (architecture), NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, Art Deco (architecture), historic landmark, 1933_construction

slgreen.com/properties/11-madison-avenue/

Credit Suisse & Sony US Headquarters

451-foot, 30-story Art-Deco office building completed in 1933 for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Designed by Harvey W. Corbett and D. Evertt Waid of the firm of Corbett & Waid, the building was originally intended to have 100 floors, surpassing the nearby Empire State Building as the world's tallest. After one year of construction, however, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 eventually led construction to halt at the 29th floor in 1933, resulting in the building's rather squat appearance. The final floor was eventually finished in 1950.

Located immediately north of the original MetLife Building, and connected via a 10th-story skybridge over 24th Street, it is clad in Alabama limestone above a granite water table, and has marble details and richly appointed marble lobbies. The vertically striated surfaces and streamlined undulating masses of this Art Deco building give it a slick if somewhat sinister appearance.

It rises from a rectangular base with impressive 2-story arched corner arcade entryways; the doors are deeply recessed within the arches, behind ornate Art Nouveau brass gates. Art-Deco light fixtures are suspended from the vaulted ceilings within the arches. The middle of the north and south facades also have three double-height round-arches with metal and glass infill. The two outer of these arches on the south side have three sets of entrance door framed in green marble; the north arches are freight bays. All of these arches as well as the corner arches are flanked by 2-story fluted pier projections. Between the arches, the 2nd floor is lined with smaller round-arches filled by stone lattice-like patterns, in either single bays or grouped in pairs.

The building's footprint covers the full block, with multiple recessed volumes which have the particularity to become 30-degree angled from the 16th floor on each side of the building, resolving at last in an original dumbbell-plan shape from the last setback. The spandrels that cap each window at each setback are ornamented with carved marble forms.

The building is still a base for a much larger skyscraper, so technically it could be finished someday, but there are no plans to do so. Because the building was supposed to be taller, it has 30 elevators, more than enough for a 30 story building. As a result there is often no wait for elevators in the building.

The building now serves as the U.S. headquarters of Credit Suisse (pronounced Credit Sweese). It is also home to the expensive restaurant Eleven Madison Park, owned by Union Square Cafe's Danny Meyer. The exterior was used as a filming location for S1E7 of the HBO reboot of "Gossip Girl".

hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.31822007438005?urlappend=%3Bseq...
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   40°44'29"N   73°59'11"W
This article is protected.

Comments

  • New York City's tax property portal has it as only 11 Madison Avenue which is the last word on the address. I don't know what the deal is with the locking whenever any edit is made, but it is immensely drastic.
  • Thats funny since the Credit Sussie address is listed as 11 Madison yet the Sony US HQ address is 25 Madison....hmmmmmmm
This article was last modified 9 months ago