Shreve, Lamb & Harmon's 1931 500 Fifth Avenue

 

photograph by Gryffindor

The year 1928 was prodigious for the new partnership of Shreve, Lamb & Harmon.  Six months after the Empire State Inc. commissioned the firm to design what would be the Empire State Building on the site of the Waldorf-Astoria, Walter J. Salmon hired the architects to design a 58-floor skyscraper at the northwest corner of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue.

Interestingly, the 42nd Street corner was considered more valuable than the Empire State Building site.  The Real Estate Record & Guide described it as "the most valuable building site on Manhattan Island north of Wall Street," and commented, "For years residents of the city and out-of-town visitors alike have speculated as to the future of this corner, wondering that so prominent a location--at 'the crossroads of the world'--should have been neglected in the modern development of Fifth Avenue."

Walter J. Salmon (he changed his surname from Salomon sometime after 1910) had acquired the 42nd Street corner in 1915, but delayed development for more than a decade.  His plot, explained The New York Times on September 14, 1930, "is located in two zones, and a special design for that unusual situation had to be worked out by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, the architects."  The two building zones, which allowed taller structures on 42nd Street than on Fifth Avenue, would result in the architects' asymmetrical design, unlike its sister building.  

Both skyscrapers broke ground in January 1930.  The New York Times followed the blinding speed of the progress of 500 Fifth Avenue.  On July 29, 1930, it reported "With the placing yesterday of the double deck tank house frame atop the fifty-eight story office building...steel work on the skyscraper was completed ahead of schedule."  The newspaper reported on September 7, "The exterior brick work...was completed last week," noting, "1,940,000 face brick and 1,374,000 common brick have been used."

photo by Wurts Bros., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Shreve, Lamb & Harmon's Art Deco design was clad in limestone, buff brick and terra cotta.  The setbacks on the Fifth Avenue side were located at the 18th, 22nd and 25th floors, while those of the taller 42nd Street portion were at the 23rd, 28th and 34th floors.  Between them, the soaring central shaft rose dramatically.  

Stores lined the sidewalk, their windows framed in bronze.  The architects decorated the lower floors with Art Deco motifs, most efficaciously at the entrance which was flanked by pylons that terminated in stylized gilded fountain motifs.  Above the entrance was a bas relief by Edward Amateis.  It depicts a seated goddess embracing a model of the building in one arm, and a staff in the other.

photograph by Epicgenius

Although the building was not completed until March 1931, it was far enough along that potential tenants could inspect spaces several months earlier.  Among those was real estate operator Reginald W. Murray, head of the R. W. Murray Company and the Bagge-Murray Company.  According to a company spokesperson, "Mr. Murray was interested in floor space in the sixty-story building...and had had blueprints made of the space and layout of executive offices for a client."

On November 20, 1930, he left his office around noon with the blueprints, saying he would be back shortly for a lunch appointment.  Just after 1:00, Murray's body crashed onto the iron grill covering the skylight of the Columbia University Club.  "The belief was expressed that while inspecting the window lighting on the twenty-fourth floor he leaned out too far, lost his balance or became dizzy, and fell," reported The New York Times.  

The soaring structure embodied the Art Deco age in this postcard view.

"The Great Crash" that triggered the Great Depression happened three months before construction began.  As the opening neared, Walter J. Salmon addressed the economic reality.  In an article in The New York Times on December 14, 1930, he said, "We feel that it will take some time to absorb the approximately 500,000 square feet of office space in the building."  Nevertheless, at the time of the article 500 Fifth Avenue was 80 percent rented.

The tenants were varied.  In May 1931, the newly-organized Hotel Expert Service Corporation took space on the 20th floor.  In August, the advertising agency of N. W. Ayer & Son, Inc. moved into the 25th through 27th floors.  Included in the space was a radio station on the 25th floor "with complete equipment for transmitting programs to several conference rooms, making it possible for the advertiser to hear his program just as it will sound when publicly broadcast," and a theater on the same floor, "where advertisers can view the moving pictures made for them by the company," reported The New York Times on August 3, 1931.

photograph by Epicogenius

Among the initial retail tenants was the tobacco store of Nat Sherman, which moved into the corner store.  In the meantime, railroad firms gravitated to the building.  On February 5, 1932, The New York Sun began an article saying, "The eleventh railroad has taken lease space in the sixty-story 500 Fifth Avenue Building."  The newest was the Mobile & Ohio Railroad Company.  Others included the Chicago & Northwestern; the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific; and Burlington & Quincy.

An unusual tenant was the Western Universities Club, which outfitted the four top floors for its clubhouse.  On October 25, 1932, the Iowa City Press-Citizen explained, "The club provides facilities for newcomers to meet old western friends who are now in the east and to promote understanding between the east and west."

The Austrian Consulate and office of consul-general Dr. Friedrich Fischerauer occupied space on the 31st floor in 1934.  At the time, the country's chancellor was dictator Engelbert Dollfuss who instituted Austro-Fascism that year.  At around 3:00 on February 14, about 200 "Communist, Socialists and other sympathizers," according to the Daily Columbia Spectator, began protests "against the Dollfuss regime" outside 500 Fifth Avenue.  "By 5:30 P. M., it numbered at least 4,000."  

Among the angry throng was Columbia assistant professor in physics (and son of author Upton Sinclair), David Sinclair.  "Trouble started shortly after 5 P. M.," said the Daily Columbia Spectator, which said the protest developed to a "near riot."  The article said, "The demonstrators, chased by officers up on the Public Library plaza, were then closed in upon by the mounted and foot police."  Among the injured was David Sinclair, who was "severely beaten about the head."

Before leaving for work on February 18, 1935, tenants must have panicked when they saw a headline in The New York Sun that read, "Elevator Men Begin Walkout."  In reporting the strike, the article noted, "Another twenty operators and two starters struck at 500 Fifth avenue in the sixty-story building, where 3,500 persons work and some 20,000 persons go in and out every day."

The building manager, Emil Gallinger, however, told a reporter the following day that amidst the Depression environment, "he had no lack of applications from men seeking to replace the striking elevator operators."  He told The Sun, "New men were running some of the elevators in the sixty-story building at 500 Fifth avenue...and that soon all would be in operation."

In the second half of the 20th century, 500 Fifth Avenue was home to several attorneys and travel agencies.  At least one railroad was still here, Burlington Northern.  

The City Stores Company, a holding company for department stores founded in 1923, had offices on the 32nd floor by the early 1970s.  Gloria Nimmons was its switchboard operator in 1974.  The 35-year-old was estranged from her husband, Bernard Nimmons.  Just before 2:00 on May 25 that year, Bernard walked into the City Stores Company offices.  According to police, he "emptied his gun at the woman."  Nimmons fled, leaving his wife dead on the floor.

At the time, the architectural firm Prentice & Chan, Olhausen occupied the top floor.  In November 1976 partner Rolf Olhausen opined to The New York Times architecture critic and journalist Paul Goldberger that its space "may have been some sort of restaurant very long ago."  The space, of course, had been the clubrooms of the Western Universities Club, details of which apparently had survived.

The Nat Sherman store's large bronze street clock, flanked with two cigar store Indians, was a fixture on the 42nd and Fifth Avenue corner.  Then, after more than three-quarters of a century in the space, Nat Sherman closed its doors on June 15, 2007.  CEO Joel Sherman explained to The New York Times journalist Anthony Ramirez that the lease had expired and, while the firm did not want to leave, the management of 500 Fifth Avenue "made staying in that building rather uncomfortable for us, they made us feel unwanted."  In his August 30 article, Ramirez recalled:

Customers like Joe Montana and Natalie Cole would drop by for cigars, and sometimes stay for a smoke in the upstairs lounge.  The more committed aficionados had small name-plated lockers for their smokes.  They included Harry Connick Jr., the singer; Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor; and Joe Torre, the Yankees baseball manager.

Nat Sherman moved diagonally across the intersection to 12 East 42nd Street.

photograph by Pablo Costa Tirado

Shreve, Lamb & Harmon's imposing Art Deco skyscraper has always played second fiddle to its famous sister, the Empire State Building.  Deserving more attention than it is given, 500 Fifth Avenue is among the most architecturally significant Art Deco skyscrapers in the city.

The 1931 Seamen's House - 550 West 20th Street

 

In 1930, the American Seamen's Friends Society, the Seamen's Christian Society, and the Seamen's Y.M.C.A. "joined together to build and operate Seamen's House at 550 West 20th Street," as reported by The New York Sun.  The site on the southeast corner of the Miller Highway (today's West Side Highway), directly across from the riverfront, would be convenient for transient, maritime workers.

The syndicate hired the architectural firm of Shreve, Lamb  & Harmon (which had just been commissioned to design the Empire State Building) to draw the plans.  Completed in 1931, the eight-story Seamen's House was clad in brown brick and trimmed in cast concrete and terra cotta.  The architects chamfered the corner where the dramatic two-story entrance echoed ancient, monumental architecture.  The piers flanking the doorway were capped with bronze lanterns in the shape of early lighthouses.  Square, fluted columns terminated in capitals of alternating red and blue terra cotta triangles.  An arched doorway opened onto an iron-railed balcony.  In the monumental Art Deco framework above it was a terra cotta plaque of a ship against a deep blue sky.  

Shreve, Lamb & Harmon emphasized the vertical with full-height piers between the openings.  The sparse decoration was mostly limited to terra cotta elements that reflected maritime motifs--lighthouses and anchors, for instance.

On the ground floor were a cafeteria, barbershop, a chapel, social rooms, and a library-reading room.  Along with the 17 bedrooms on the second floor was a gymnasium and swimming pool.  The upper floors contained a warren of small bedrooms and dormitories.

The Seamen's House opened in the early years of the Great Depression.  On December 4, 1931, its executive secretary, Clifford A. Braider, issued a plea in the form of a letter to the editor of The New York Sun that said in part:

At this season of the year and throughout the winter more than ever before we will be called upon to supply clothing for men and boys who "go down to the sea in ships."  You can assure your readers that any clothing they may donate to us will bring larger dividends than what the "ole clothes man" will give them.

We face a very serious situation and if possible we want to anticipate the needs of this group of men, who have felt the effects of the depression more than any other.  They not only are out of work but many are sick, and we want to do our best to help them in their extremity.

The facility depended greatly on donations.  On December 12, 1932, the New York Evening Post reported, "A dinner-dance for the benefit of the Seaman's [sic] House, 550 West Twentieth Street, will be given on board the liner Leviathan at Pier 50, North River, Wednesday night."

For decades, the sailors who came and went from the ships on the Hudson River were known to police as a boisterous bunch.  Riverfront barrooms were the scenes of drunken fights, robberies, and even murders.  When the Seamen's House opened, many of its residents were no better behaved.

One of them was 28-year-old Robert Ross, "an unemployed seaman," according to The New York Sun on February 8, 1932.  He had been arrested the day before for a terrifying crime.  Rose d'Agostino, who was 23, was walking along a corridor on the sixth floor of the Post Graduate Hospital when Ross "sprang at her from a vacant room and tried to snatch her handbag."   When his victim screamed, he hit her with a blackjack, knocking her to the floor and "causing a painful laceration."  The policemen who found Ross hiding under a table charged him with attempted robbery.

The Seamen's House provided "open forums" for the residents.  But in 1933, they were discontinued and replaced by lectures "after workers took over every forum and spoke defending the Unemployed, Councils, the Revolutionary Unions and the Communist Party," according to The Daily Worker (a Socialist newspaper).  The new policy failed.

On January 15, a lecturer took the podium to speak about Ghandi's passive resistance movement.  The Daily Worker reported, "Passive resistance was thrown overboard when militant seamen took the floor at the reactionary Seamen's House."  The speaker was forced off the stage and the protesting ship workers "over rode the new rule at the Seamen's House for 'lectures only and no open forums.'"  They forced Clifford A. Braider to invite W. C. McCuistion of the Marine Workers Industrial Union to speak on "Revolutionary Mass Action vs. Passive Resistance" a week later.

On the afternoon of January 24, 1935, the SS Mohawk left New York City for Havana with 110 crew members and 53 passengers aboard.  Less than five hours later it was struck by the Norwegian cargo ship Talisman.   The crew struggled to release the snow covered lifeboats in sub-zero temperatures.  A year later, on January 26, 1936, a service was held in the Seamen's House auditorium "in memory of the fifty-six passengers and crew who died in the Mohawk disaster."

In the meantime, the Socialist-leaning seamen continued to cause upheaval.  On April 30, 1937, it resulted in one resident's nearly losing his life.  The New York Post reported, "A dozen men, apparently seamen of the old-line faction in the union, raided a meeting of seventy I. S. U. stewards...last night.  A sharp fight occurred and the raiders, as they left, stabbed Thomas Harmon, thirty-two, a seaman, of 550 West Twentieth Street.  He was taken [to] St. Vincent's Hospital in a serious condition."

Keeping order among what were often rowdy and unruly sailors required a staff of what were termed "special officers," or what today might be called security guards.  Arthur Peterson was one of them in the winter of 1938.  When 47-year-old Patrick Travers, a Hoboken ship worker, showed up drunken and disorderly on February 1, Peterson attempted to eject him.  It ended very badly.

The Long Island Daily Press reported, "Witnesses told police that Peterson was putting Travers out of the Y. M. C. A. building at 550 West 20th street, when the ship worker slashed out with his fists."  Peterson took a blow on the face, and punched back.  The article said, "Travers reeled to the street and collapsed.  He died on the sidewalk."  The 31-year-old guard was arrested and charged with homicide.

After World War II broke out in Europe, America instituted the first peacetime draft in U.S. history, the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940.  By the nature of their work, many residents of the Seamen's House were at sea and unable to register immediately.  But a plan was established to accommodate them.  On October 25, 1940, The New York Sun reported, "Seamen away on October 16, the day of registration for men between 21 and 35, are being registered as they arrive and Dr. James C. Healey, chaplain of the Seamen's Branch of the Y. M. C. A., 550 West Twentieth street, announced today that he had registered 556 since October 17."

On December 14, 1966, the Lockport, New York Union-Sun and Journal reported that the state planned 18 facilities "for use in the new compulsory narcotics treatment program."  The article said, "The first of 14 private properties named today to be acquired will be the Seamen's House YMCA, 550 West 20th St."

The building was renovated to accommodate the Bayview Rehabilitation Center, operated by the State Narcotic Addiction Control Commission.  It opened in June 1967.  Treatment included activities that many might have found surprising.  On April 4, 1970, the N. Y. Amsterdam News reported on a week-long "Easter Festival of cultural, artistic, musical, recreational and athletic events at Bayview Rehabilitation Center."  There were sports competitions for court-certified male addicts," and a musical staged for relatives and friends of the "more than 200 residents undergoing rehabilitative programming at the center."

A second renovation by the State of New York was completed in 1974 to convert the facility to a medium security prison, the Bayview State Correctional Facility.  Its policy of weekend passes for certain inmates came under question a year later.

Herman White had been jailed in 1974 for "hurling his two young daughters through a window," according to The New York Times.  On June 28 the following year, he was given a weekend furlough.  He went to the home of his children's mother, Pauline Winfree, and "persuaded her to let him take the children, Pamela Winfree, 5, and Michele, 3, to buy them sneakers," reported The New York Times.

White was angry that Pauline Winfree had married while he was in jail.  When he returned to her apartment that evening, he pushed her to have sexual relations, which she refused to do.  He grabbed the two girls and disappeared.  Before Pauline and the police could find him, he had thrown them from the roof of a four-story building.  The girls were taken to Kings County Hospital in critical condition.

On July 16, 1983 the Brooklyn Big Red News, reported that the Bayview Correctional Facility would "present a special Family Day Program" that afternoon.  "This day is held to bring incarcerated women and their parents, husbands and children together," said the article.

Despite the efforts, the Correctional Association of New York found the Bayview Correctional Facility severely wanting in a report issued in January 1985.   The report described, "a debilitated physical plant, lengthy delays in obtaining outside medical care, inadequate visiting and program facilities, the lack of sufficient vocational training and counseling, and a history of sexual harassment and abuse by the male guards against the women prisoners."  The conclusion was that "it is not an appropriate general-confinement facility."

In October 2012, as Hurricane Sandy closed in, the inmates  of the Bayview Correctional Facility were evacuated.  They would not return.  The New York Times reported, "Fourteen feet of water destroyed boilers, corroded electrical equipment and required over $600,000 in repairs."

On August 20, 2013, The New York Times reported that the state planned to sell or lease the property.  The article pointed out that the empty prison was "now a valuable piece of real estate."

The following year, the NoVo Foundation and Goren Group announced an intended renovation to create The Women's Building.  It was to be a "a home for the global girls' and women's rights movement," according to Curbed New York.  In August 2016, Deborah Berke Partners was chosen to redesign the 100,000-square-foot facility "into a place for activism, partnership, and solution-building in the movements."

Then, in March 2020, a statement from the NoVo Foundation read, "Timelines and budgets for this project have far exceeded original estimates."  The foundation decided to redirect the $50 million dollars raised to other projects "that can directly facilitate girls and women in need."

Two years later, on July 26, 2022, The Real Deal reported that the Empire State Development Corporation would convert the building "into supportive housing for the formerly homeless," saying the "new property would include at least 60 supportive housing units."  The redevelopment, which would include on-site social services, "is being folded into the larger Penn Station redevelopment," said the article.

photographs by the author

LaptrinhX.com has no authorization to reuse the content of this blog