Time & Life Building

 office building, skyscraper, movie / film / TV location, 1959_construction, International style architecture

587-foot, 48-story International-style office building completed in 1959. Designed by Harrison, Abramovitz & Harris (Wallace Harrison) for the Rockefeller Center Development Corporation, it was constructed for the Time-Life publishing company as the first building in the Rockefeller Center Extension across Sixth Avenue from the original Center. It differs in appearance from the later built "Sixth Avenue Center" skyscrapers, like the next-door 1251 Avenue of the Americas in having less vertical "stripe" elements and more of open glass wall surface on its facade.

The exterior column piers are clad in limestone and the walls between consist of green-tinted glass with thin, facade-high aluminium mullions and window-covered mesh spandrels. The building is set back from Sixth Avenue and 50th Street to create streetside plaza spaces. The plaza is paved with wavy-effect multicolor mosaic which extends to the inside lobby. The lobby itself makes extensive use of stainless-steel paneling with gradual hue tinting. There are large murals by Fritz Glamer and Joseph Albers inside.

The piers divide the east and west elevations into four recessed bays, and the north and south into 11 bays. On the south facade on 50th Street, there are entrances in the 3rd bays in from the ends, both with swooping steel canopies that angle up at the sides as they extend out over the sidewalk, supported by pairs of black metal columns. On the north elevation on 52nd Street, the tower is set back above a 7-story wing that runs the length of the lot, extending out past the plaza at the east end to the lot line. The 7-story wing lacks the main limestone piers seen on the tower, and instead has a regular row of aluminum mullions between each window and glass spandrel. Aligned with the east edge of the tower above is a very deeply recessed entrance; the entire bay above the entrance is also slightly recessed in the 7-story wing.

The entire ground floor along the north and east faces of the low-rise wing are lined with plate-glass storefronts, with a loading dock at the far west end. The ground floor is occupied by Avra restaurant, MLB Flagship Store, Ted's Montana Grill, and The Capital Grille. Its landmarked interior lobby has a mural entitled "Relational Painting #88", by Fritz Glarner and a relief entitled "Portals" by Josef Albers. However, the restaurant, La Fonda Del Sol, with its interior by Alexander Girard has been lost to time.

Time & Life occupied 21 of the floors itself, with the rest rented out to various tenants. In May 2014, Time Inc announced that the company was planning to leave the Time & Life Building for the Brookfield Place complex (formerly the World Financial Center) in lower Manhattan.

The exterior plaza was used as a filming location for White Collar S01 E11 "Home Invasion" as Neal Caffrey and Alex Hunt discuss the location of the music box. The exteriors of 1251 Avenue of the Americas and the saloon at 1240 Avenue of the Americas can be seen in the background. It was reclad in 2014 by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners with Higgins Quasebarth for the Rockefeller Group.

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s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/2119.pdf
www.pcf-p.com/projects/1271-avenue-of-the-americas-recl...