One Grand Central Place (New York City, New York)

 office building, skyscraper, muslim, Renaissance Revival (architecture)

673-foot, 55-story Renaissance Revival office building completed in 1930 for the Lincoln Storage Company and Lincoln National Bank. Designed by J.E.R. Carpenter, Kenneth B. Norton, and William Harmon Beers, it was known as Lincoln Building from its completion until 2009. At the time of Lincoln Building's completion, the developers claimed that never before had an office building benefited from "so much fresh air, or so much bright light." The entrance lobby contained Daniel Chester French's bronze model of the statue for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. (after renaming of the building in 2010, the model was removed). Quotations from Lincoln's speeches adorn the lobby walls.

The main mass of the building, clad in brown brick above a 6-story limestone base (the base is three floors on the south facade), rises from mid-block, although there is a 24-story wing extending to Madison Avenue on the west side. The north and sides facades are nine bays wide, with an extra 1-story bay at the west end of the south facade, and an extra 4-story bay at the west end of the north facade.

On the north side, the main entrances are recessed in the 2nd & 3rd bays from the east, where the piers have grey granite bases. The two piers framing the entrances are adorned with carved panels at the top of the ground floor, and a row of carved panels runs above these bays. The 2nd floor above the entrances has a single, wide opening with a broad window with rounded upper corners. Incised letters in the stone above read "ONE GRAND CENTRAL PLACE". The easternmost bay has a storefront, with another carved panel on the eastern end pier. To the west there are wide, 3-bay storefronts with carved panels on the piers. At the eastern bay's 2nd floor there is a large tripartite window with thin bronze-colored framing. To the west there are two 3-bay-wide openings filled with joined tripartite windows and matching framing. Every bay on the 3rd floor has matching triple-windows with bronze- and gold-colored framing. The 4th floor is set off by a band course and has bay of paired windows; each pier has a carved panel with a cartouche-like shape; the two innermost panels are slightly narrower and have less-rounded forms within the panel borders. The 4th floor is topped by a modillioned band course. At the extra bay on the west end, the lower two floors are faced in brown granite, with glass doors at the ground floor and a low triple-window at the 2nd. The 3rd & 4th floors match those on the main facade, only slightly set-back; the cornice on the 4th floor is surmounted by a stone balustrade.

The center three bays set back above the 4th floor, creating two end pavilions formed by the three bays on either side. Stone balustrades mark the setback at the middle bays. The limestone 5th-6th floors at the pavilions have paired windows, with intricately carved, 2-story vertical bands on the intermediate piers separating the windows in each bay. The spandrels dividing the windows between the two floors are salmon-colored terra-cotta, with rows of four stylized panels and a dentil band across the tops. A stone cornice above a row of roundels caps the base, with the middle bay at each end pavilion featuring three console brackets supporting a balcony with stone balustrade at the 7th floor. The cornice capping the base continues along the side and back walls of the recessed light court in the center.

The brick upper floors have paired windows at the end pavilions, while the recessed center section has a bay of three windows in the middle, flanked by additional single-windows. The paired windows and three middle windows have brown spandrels between floors, with designs matching those between the 5th & 6th floors. Cornice run across the entire facade above the 16th & 17th floors, and the 18th floor is topped by a corbel course, marking the first setback at the end pavilions. Other corbel courses mark setbacks above the 24th & 30th floors, from which the rectangular upper tower rises flush to the roof line on all four sides. The north face of the upper tower consists of three bays of three windows each, alternating with four bays of paired windows. The 3-window bays are defined by uninterrupted intermediate piers and dark-brown spandrel panels, while the paired-window bays have incised brick spandrel panels. The sash was cast by Gorham Company.

At the 47th floor, the three window bays are replaced by projecting stone arcades of five pointed-arches on large console brackets, above bands of diamond-patterned stonework. At the top of the 48th floor, these bays are topped by modillioned band courses, above which the bays are slightly recessed, with 3-story stone piers dividing the three windows and white stone spandrels, culminating in pointed-arches at the 52nd floor. At the eastern bay the three arches are grouped together under a larger pointed-arch, bordered by alternating stone and tan brick blocks, and encompassing a quatrefoil below the point of the arch. Similar treatments at the other two bays are interrupted by bands of windows across the top of the main arch at the 53rd floor. At the 51st floor the paired-window bays have projecting arcades of five stone pointed-arches, slightly different in design than those below on the wider bays. At the 52nd floor, the two inner of the paired-window bays have only narrow single-windows; the westernmost bay has a tripartite windows, and the easternmost bay has a narrow single-window divided by a brown metal spandrel from the 53rd-floor window, which is topped by a pointed-arch. The other three smaller bays have double-windows at the 53rd floor. The 54th floor is set off by a band course, with double-windows in the smaller bays, and triple-windows flanked by double-windows in the wider bays; the exception is the easternmost bay, which has a row of deep corbels. A broader stone band course tops this floor, with the 55th floor set back and crowned by a low-slope copper roof.

The south facade is very similar to the north side. Its base rises only three floors, where the middle section sets back a light court like on the north side. The ground floor rests on a grey granite water table that grows taller toward the east as the site slopes downward. There is a small, brass-framed entrance in the middle bay with a broken rounded pediment above the door, another in the west bay, and a third in the 3rd bay from the east. Above the doors and in the other bays are brass-framed windows, and the intermediate piers are faced in purplish-grey marble. At the far east end there is a loading dock with a metal roll-down gate, and a service door, and brass screens in place of windows. The extra 1-story bay at the west end has a brass-framed window above a marble band. The rest of the base and upper floors match the designs of the north facade, but there is one extra setback above the 11th floor.

The upper floors on the narrower east facade are plainer, without openings or ornament until the projecting stone arcade at the 47th floor. The other decorative features of the top floors are continued on this facade, with one large arch, although there are blind openings instead of actual windows. The west facade matches the other elevations at the upper floors, with windows. At the lower floors, the projecting west wing has setbacks like those on the other facades, above the 15th, 21st, and 24th floors. The base on this wing is five floors high, topped by a cornice. There are three windows in the center bay, flanked by single-window end bays. The ground floor has entrances at both end bays, both topped by pointed-arches with medallions. The middle bay has a storefront with brass-framed glass; at the 2nd floor there is band of four brass-framed windows above an intricate band of brass tracery. The 3rd floor is topped by an ornamented band course, with four console brackets supporting a stone balustraded balcony at the middle bay of the 4th floor. The floors above are similar to the lower floors on the other facades.

For this skyscraper, he opted for a Venetian-Moorish palette. The building occupies the entire width of the block, ascending vertically through a sequence of massive setbacks acting like buttresses holding a central, slimmer section adorned with Moorish elements; pointed arches, gigantic triforas, balconies, and a thick cornice underlining the Italian style roof. From the sidewalk, it appears to be an overscaled Venetian Palazzo floating in the sky.

The ground floor is occupied by Pera restaurant, a Chase Bank branch, Charles Schwab, and Blue Bottle Coffee. The basement level has a direct connection to Grand Central Terminal.

www.onegrandcentralplace.com/
usmodernist.org/PA/PP-1930-07.pdf