General Motors Building (New York)

Infobox Skyscraper
building_name = General Motors Building


caption =
year_end = 1968
location = 767 Fifth Avenue New York City
coordinates =
status = Complete
groundbreaking = 1964
constructed = 1968
opening =
use = Offices, retail
antenna_spire =
roof = 705 feet (215 m)
top_floor =
floor_count = 50
elevator_count =
cost =
floor_area = 1.7 m sq ft [Cite news |last=Daniels |first=Lee A. |title=A Major New Landlord in the City |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00EEDA163BF93AA15752C0A962948260& |publisher="The New York Times" |date=1984-01-29 |accessdate=2008-04-15|quote=In 1982, the General Motors building on Fifth Avenue across from the Plaza Hotel, which has convert|1700000|sqft|m2, changed hands in an unusual sale leaseback estimated to be worth $500 million.]
architect = Edward Durell Stone & Associates Emery Roth & Sons
engineer =
contractor =
developer = Macklowe Properties, Inc.
owner = Boston Properties [Cite news |title=Dubai firm in New York GM building deal |last=Glass |first=Amy |publisher="ArabianBusiness.com" |url=http://www.arabianbusiness.com/521726-dubai-firm-in-new-york-gm-building-deal?ln=en |accessdate=2008-07-10]
management =
references = The General Motors Building is a 50-story, 705-foot (215 m) office tower in Manhattan, New York City, facing Fifth Avenue at 59th Street . The building is one of the few structures in Manhattan that occupies a full city block. The building size is 1,905,103 rentable square feet on a plot measuring 200 x 420 (84,350 square feet) that was formerly the site of the Savoy Hotel. The tower was designed in the international style by Edward Durell Stone & Associates in association with Emery Roth & Sons.

Started in 1964 and finished in 1968, the General Motors Building originally featured, in its street-level lobby, a showroom for the vehicles of General Motors. Currently, the lobby is the home of FAO Schwarz's flagship toy store. The premises of the FAO Schwarz toy store feature a sculpture of a stuffed bear in the plaza and oversized keyboard on the floor played by foot as seen in the film "Big". The store won an award for its lighting in 2005. [Cite web |title="Lumen Award Winners 2005" |url=http://www.iesny.org/LumenAwardWinners2005.aspx |publisher=Illuminating Engineering Society of North America |accessdate=2008-01-08]

Also in the building is an Apple Store. The Apple Store entrance is a 32 ft (9.8 m) by convert|32|ft|m|abbr=on by convert|32|ft|m|abbr=on glass cube, likened to the Louvre Pyramid, [Cite news |title=A Cube in the Land of the Wheel |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/02/nyregion/02gm.html |author=David W. Dunlap |publisher="New York Times" |date=2005-03-02 |accessdate=2008-01-09] and descent into the store is made via a glass elevator or a treadded spiral staircase surrounding it. This addition was designed by Apple and the firm of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. [Peter Slatin. [http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/18/apple-gm-retail-in_ps_0518soapbox_inl.html "Apple's Big Apple Splash"] Forbes. May 18 2006.] Another prominent tenant of the General Motors Building is Weil, Gotshal & Manges, which houses its headquarters in the building.

General Motors had a strong architectural and design presence in New York prior to the General Motors building, at both of its World's Fairs. Here it introduced the Futurama exhibitref label|note01|A|^ at the 1939 New York World's Fair. The architecture of this exhibition is attributed to Norman Bel Geddes and was a major piece of Streamline Moderne featuring sinuous ramps, and a guided circuitous route through the exhibition. The design of the General Motors office building was completed in the year of the 1964 New York World's Fair. More architecturally experimental than the office tower, this building was designed like a car with a ride and exhibitions contained inside. Behind a tilted and curved façade likened to a tail fin, Futurama II featured travel via pods and rovers to the moon, under ice and water, to the jungle and desert, the city of tomorrow, and exhibitions of futuristic cars. [Press releases and documentation made available at http://www.nywf64.com [http://www.nywf64.com/gm01.shtml "General Motors"] Accessed 9 January 2008.] At General Motors' home in Detroit, many of its buildings had been designed by Albert Kahn including the high-rise Cadillac Place, also known as the "General Motors Building". [ [http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/detroit/d30.htm "General Motors Building"] National Parks Service. Accessed 9 January 2008.]

The façade is an expression of unbroken verticality in "glistening white Georgia marble" ["AIA Guide to New York City" first edition, 1968.] and sheets of glass. Both architectural firms were prolific skyscraper designers contributing to much of Manhattan's urban fabric; however, the property has been more attractive as a piece of real estate and as a home to its corporate tenants, than it has to architecture critics. Paul Goldberger and Ada Louise Huxtable both wrote negative critical reviews of the building [Paul Goldberger. "On the Rise: Architecture and Design in a Post Modern Age." Penguin. 1985. ISBN 0140076328] [Francis Morrone [http://www.nysun.com/article/55133 "Trying to Rescue A Sunken Plaza"] New York Sun. May 24, 2007.] and even the first edition of the "AIA Guide to New York City" (1968), an unabashed apologia for International Modernism, noted "The hue and cry over the new behemoth was based, not on architecture but, rather, first on the loss of the hotel'sref label|note02|B|^ elegant shopping amenities in favor of automobile salesmanship (an auto showroom is particularly galling at the spot in New York most likely to honor the pedestrian)." ["AIA Guide" 1968:157.] The General Motors building was once co-owned by Donald Trump, bought with Conesco in 1998 for what was originally thought to be 800 million dollars, [Jim Yardley. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEEDE163BF932A05756C0A96E958260 "Trump Buying The Landmark G.M. Building"] "New York Times". May 31, 1998.] [George H. Ross, Andrew James McLeanContributors Andrew James McLean, Donald J. Trump. "Trump Strategies for Real Estate: Billionaire Lessons for the Small Investor". John Wiley and Sons. 2005. Page 129. ISBN 0471736430] and once bore his name in four-foot gold letters. The cost turned out to be $878 million. [Charles V. Bagli. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEFDB173EF933A15751C0A9649C8B63 "Heavenly Match Becomes Real Estate War Over the G.M. Building"] "New York Times". February 20, 2002.] Trump raised the controversial sunken plaza where few pedestrians had ventured, [David W. Dunlap. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E6DB1F3AF933A05755C0A96F958260 "Commercial Property; Courtyard Is Rising With New Look"] "New York Times". June 30, 1999.] which had been criticised by Huxtable. In 2003, the General Motors building set the North American real estate sales record for the price of an office building when it was sold to the Macklowe Organization for USD 1.4 billion. [Charles V. Bagli. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9400E7DE1738F933A0575BC0A9659C8B63 "G.M. Building Sells for $1.4 Billion, a Record"] . "New York Times". August 30, 2003.] [Elaine Misonzhnik. [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3601/is_50/ai_109133630 "Macklowe pays $1.4B for GM building, highest ever paid in North America - Macklowe Properties buys building from Conseco"] "Real Estate Weekly". Sept 3, 2003.]

In February 2008, due to a credit crisis among lenders, the Macklowe Organization put the GM Building up for sale. When it was sold in May for an estimated $2.8 billion to a group led by real estate mogul Mort Zuckerman, who had in his control funds from the Dubai Fund [New York Sun [http://www.nysun.com/business/arab-fund-may-snatch-gm-building/74219/ "Arab Fund May Snatch GM Building"] "New York Sun April 4, 2008".] [Shariah Finance Watch [http://shariahfinancewatch.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/arab-fund-to-snap-up-teh-general-motors-building-on-fifth-avenue-in-nyc/ "Arab Fund to snap up the General Motors Building on Fifth Avenue in NYC!"] . "Shariah Finance Watch". April 4, 2008.] , known also as the Dubai International Capital, it became the most expensive office building in the US. The building was the first New York landmark to be purchased by the fund, followed by the Chrysler Building in 2008. [BBC News [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7498381.stm " Abu Dhabi buys into NY landmark"] . "BBC News". July 10, 2008.]

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Notes

:A. note label|note01|A|^The namesake of the comic retro-futuro animation series Futurama.:B. note label|note02|B|^The site had contained the Savoy Hotel, with a limestone ground-floor façade and Beaux-Arts classical style that completed the former architectural unity of the Grand Army Plaza.

References

ee also

*List of tallest buildings in New York City

External links

* [http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=generalmotorsbuilding-newyorkcity-ny-usa General Motors Building, New York City] at Emporis.com
* [http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=2311 General Motors Building] at SkyscraperPage.com