CitiGroup Center (601 Lexington Avenue)

USA / New Jersey / West New York / Lexington Avenue, 601
 office building, bank, skyscraper, 1977_construction, postmodern (architecture)
915-foot, 59-story postmodern office building completed in 1977. Designed by Hugh Stubbins & Associates and Emery Roth & Sons to house the headquarters of Citibank, the structure is supported by four exterior megacolumns at the center of each side and an octagonal core. The tower's base is cut away at the four corners, leaving it standing dramatically on a cross-shaped footing which extends from the core to the center of each side. This arrangement permitted the developers to construct a large tower over the top of St. Peter's Lutheran Church where columns would otherwise reside. A new church was however built in place of the old one. Additional air-rights were purchased from the church and allowed the tower to become one of the tallest in the city. The four corners are cantilevered 72' beyond the edge of the columns which rise 114' above the plaza to the first office floor.

The facades are clad in very light-grey aluminum with bands of blue glass. The four silvery facades are exceptionally smooth, disguising eight tiers of V-shaped steel bracing designed by the noted structural engineer William LeMessurier. At the summit, the roof is cut off at a 45-degree angle. The slanted crown is 160 feet tall, and was originally intended to hold solar power conversion panels.

The tower, supported on its 9-story stilts, sits over a 2-level sunken plaza with diagonal stairs and a water feature, with steps to and from a subway mezzanine at the south. Retail space is located below the Lexington Avenue sidewalk at the west, with an entrance to the church on the northwest corner at the lower level. The plaza is paved in granite. On Lexington, just to the south of the church, is a glass entrance pavilion. The underside of the tower, above the stilts, is clad in aluminum panels, with black metal grilles around the edges of the corners. The slanted roof slopes to the south; its east facade has two horizontal openings, and its north facade is recessed. The slope is clad with square aluminum panels, and the slope levels briefly at the base and top.

At the east side of the site, next to the tower and sunken plaza, is a 6-story retail and office structure; on 53rd Street it actually begins at the south stilt of the tower with two floors, and has roof terraces that step up towards the east. This structure is also clad in silvery aluminum panels with glass bands. At the ground floor it has opaque, light-green glass panels above a low granite water table. The 6-story terraced structure is matched on 54th Street, where it has four loading docks. To the east of these, there is a recessed entrance to The Atrium shops and cafes, with glass double-doors flanking a revolving door (another recessed entrance is located on 53rd Street). The 6-story structure extends all the way to 3rd Avenue along 54th Street, with light-green tinted plate-glass storefronts at the ground floor. The bottom two floors are chamfered at a 45-degree angle at the northeast corner, with the column supporting the upper floors.

Double-decker elevator cars in the tower reduce the area devoted to the vertical circulation core, leaving more space available for offices. A computer driven load mass damper enables the reduced number of vertical supports and ensures the stability of this building; this was one of the first skyscrapers in the U.S. to be built with a tuned mass damper. The TMD comprises a solid 400-ton block of concrete resting on oil-film bearings and electronically controlled actuators over 800' above the ground for building stability.

It was only after completion of the tower that the original designer suspected a potential danger in the bolted connections (originally specified to be welded) and convinced the owners to undertake strengthening the joints. The tower's bolted joints were too weak to withstand 70mph wind. During the summer of 1978, work crews welded plate reinforcing to key diagonals to make the structure safe. Two-inch-thick steel plates were welded over each of the building's 200 bolted joints. Six weeks into the repair Hurricane Ella heading right for New York City and the tower was only half done with the repairs. The City was just hours away from disaster but luckily Hurricane Ella turned eastward away from the city giving the construction workers enough time to fix the tower. Even though nothing happened the crisis was kept hidden from the public for almost 20 years.

The ground floor of the 6-story structure is occupied by TMPL Fitness, The Hugh food hall, and NYU Langone Health.

www.601lexington.com/


www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q56PMJbCFXQ

In this building

  1. Kirkland & Ellis LLP
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Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citigroup_Center
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   40°45'30"N   73°58'11"W

Comments

  • Towering 915 feet above Lexington Avenue, the Citigroup Center is the world headquarters for Citicorp and its interesting marble design makes it dominate the New York skyline from the East River.
  • This is not Citigroup's headquarters. The firm's headquarters are located across the street at 399 Park Avenue which has been the headquarters since 1956.
  • This building was about to fall one time if they did not upgrade the interior to make it balance itself off from the wind.
This article was last modified 10 months ago