CUNY Graduate Center (New York City, New York)

 university, office building, interesting place, Italianate style (architecture), movie / film / TV location, 1914_construction

8-story Italian-Renaissance multi-use building originally completed in 1906, with the addition completed in 1913. Designed by Trowbridge & Livingston for the B. Altman & Co. Department Store, it now houses offices, a library, retail space, and theater and university space. The original 8-story structure, filling most of the block from the west side, was expanded to fill the entire block by the taller addition, which matches on the lower floors.

Born in 1840, Benjamin Altman took over his father's drygoods business, and in 1874, moved into a new store at 18th Street & 6th Avenue, where it remained for 30 years, becoming a leader in such goods as silks, satins and velvets. The new store at 5th Avenue was not built all at once. The first section had to be constructed around property at the northeast corner of 5th Avenue and 34th Street which had not yet been acquired. This corner section was not completed until 1911, but was part of the original design, and is now indistinguishable from the rest. The 1913 addition fronting Madison Avenue continues many of the design motifs, but their treatment is more elaborate.

The 5th Avenue facade is nine bays wide, faced in limestone. The lower two floors are united into a base by a colonnade formed of a giant order of what were originally engaged Ionic columns, unfluted, supporting an architrave now stripped of its detail. The columns sit on pedestals that increase in height along the southward slope of the avenue. The central three bays project to form a grand portico enclosing the main entrance. The columns of the portico are more elaborate than the others; they are fluted, the intrados of their arches are adorned with roundels, and their bases have ornamental moldings in a modified Greek-fret design. Their original Ionic capitals have been replaced by rosettes. Within the bays formed by the double-height columns of the colonnade, single-height engaged piers flanking windows and doors support an arch whose apex touches the architrave. On either side of the entrance portico, the 2-story bays are divided into upper and lower windows, separated by an architrave. The lower windows are display windows. The three entrance bays have rounded, undulating Art-Noveau style copper and glass canopies. The upper windows are in the configuration of a Roman Bath window, semi-circular and divided into six panes. A row of flagpoles project from above the base.

The 3rd floor comprises a series of square-headed windows corresponding to the nine bays below. They have simple molded surrounds with keystones. Between the window openings, over the giant columns below, are large square panels with molded edges. A band course runs above the windows, separating this floor from the next three above it. The windows in the 4th-6th floors are almost identical, but with simple sills and no keystones. Above the 6th floor runs a band course with a frieze with triglyphs. The 7th & 8th floors are treated visually as a double-story, mirroring the 2-story base. Each bay comprises a double-height arched windows, with a lower 7th-floor windows separated from the upper by a horizontal element. The 8th-floor windows mirror the 2nd-floor windows below. Above the 8th floor is an entablature and heavy cornice, which has lions' heads at the top marking each bay.

The south facade on 34th Street similar to the 5th Avenue facade, with the following exceptions - it is much longer, and divided into bays as follows: from Fifth Avenue there are five bays, followed by a projecting 3-bay entrance portico, beyond which stretch nine more bays. Except in the entrance portico, the double-height columns of 5th Avenue are replaced by pilasters. The entrance portico is similar to that on 5th Avenue, but only its center bay has an entrance with elaborate canopy and staircase. Only the first four bays east from 5th Avenue, and the first two bays west from Madison Avenue contains display windows. In the other bays the area corresponding to the display windows is divided into two portions: in the upper, there are three windows behind a metal grille; in the lower there is a stone panel over a base. The 11th & 12th bays east from 5th Avenue have service entrances, with a simple metal canopy.

The four easternmost bays rise to a 13-story tower. The upper five floors, faced in white brick rather than limestone, are handled as follows: the 9th floor, at the level of the cornice to the west, has paired windows, above which is a band course. The 10th & 11th floors are treated as a unit, with paired, recessed windows. Within the recess, the windows are separated by a slender double-height Ionic column and architrave from which spring small arches. A band course separates these windows from the 12th-floor level, which is identical to the 9th floor. A corbelled band course in turn separates the 12th from the 13th floor, which has similar window treatment; the 13th floor is capped by a small cornice.

The Madison Avenue facade is related in design to the 5th Avenue facade, but not identical. The first two floors form a base similar to that on 5th Avenue, but with no projecting central portico. Instead, the single bay at either end projects slightly. The central bay of the facade has a single entrance, but without the ornamental canopy like those on 5th Avenue. The end bays are limestone-faced at the lower eight floors, and brick-faced above. The end bays are further distinguished from the inner bays by having narrower windows. The brick faced inner bays have paired windows at the 3rd floor. The 4th-6th-floor bays are treated as a 3-story unit, with 3-story brick piers supporting a stone architrave. Within the brick piers, the windows are divided further into three small bays by a metal framework. At the 4th-floor level in each bay, the three smaller bays are formed by two slender Corinthian columns on tall pedestals, supporting an architrave; the architrave breaks forward over the central small bay and supports a segmental pediment. This form is repeated at the 5th floor with Ionic columns, with no pediments or pedestals, but with console brackets supported by the columns.

The 7th & 8th floors, separated by a band course, are treated as a double-height arcade defined by brick piers with a paneled effect; the brick arches have keystones. The windows within the arches are divided by slender colonnettes as the 7th floor. At the 9th floor each bay consists of a pair of square-headed windows. The 10th-11th floors are a modified reprise of the design of the 4th-6th floors. The 12th-floor bays have square-headed windows, above which is a level of brick corbelling. The final 13th-floor bays have paired windows topped by a small cornice. The stone-faced outer bays above the 2nd floor have similar windows to the middle bays, but smaller. The 35th Street facade is similar to that on 34th Street.

The B. Altman Company closed on December 31, 1989, and the building remained vacant until 1996. It was then converted by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates (now H3 Hardy) and Emery Roth & Sons to other uses, including the City University of New York's CUNY Graduate Center on the Fifth Avenue side, by the New York Public Library as the Science, Industry and Business Library designed by Gwathmey Seigel & Associates on the Madison Avenue side, and by Oxford University Press which was designed by HOK Architects.

The exterior main entrance on 5th and 34th was used as a filming location for the Amazon series "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" where Midge goes to B.Altman's. The series also used the E. 34th side with false windows to create elaborate holiday displays. However, the interior was filmed elsewhere at the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center which was rented to the production for two years.

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