510 FIFTH AVENUE

(formerly The Manufacturers Trust Company)

(northwest corner of 43rd Street)

Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

Developer: The Manufacturers Trust Company

Erected: 1954

By Carter B. Horsley

This modest, understated, simple, underdeveloped, boxy bank building is a modern landmark that advanced the clean lines of Lever House, also designed, two years earlier, by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and solidified its glass-curtain-wall revolution in urban design.

Clarity is the key and polish the password here.

By using clear, untinted, large windows, separated by very narrow, projecting aluminum mullions, and thin dark-green glass spandrels, a very high degree of transparency creates an open air of friendliness, an ideal promotion for a client such as bank. The second floor banking level is set back from the windows to enhance the feeling of open space.

As John Tauranac noted in his "Essential New York, A Guide To The History And Architecture Of Manhattan's Important Building's Parks And Bridges," (Holt Rinehart Winston, 1979), this building marks a revolution in bank architecture where the impregnable gives way to the inviting.

In his autobiography, "The Spaces In Between: An Architect's Journey," (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1973), Nathaniel Alexander Owings, one of the architectural firm's name partners, recounts the history of this "glass lantern" project, which was influential in the firm's ascendancy to the pinnacle of corporate design:

"Louis Skidmore was entirely responsible for bringing this major commission to us. Hap Flanigan, chairman of the board of the Manufacturers Trust, was an old friend, and he brought us to the site..., nearly at the epicenter of prestige of upper Manhattan. Skid, sensing the opportunity for a masterpiece, conceived the idea of a competition among our young and eager designers. Here was an opportunity to shake up the conventional architects' approaches to banking. They were encouraged to come up with whatever popped into their heads, and the history and tradition of banking be damned. Charles Evans Hughes III, grandson of the jurist, won hands down. His four-story, glass-walled bank, an apartment and a garden on the roof, featured as the central drama of the scheme a great bank vault, traditional symbol of banking. With a circular many-layered door, fastened together with great glittering rivets and bolts, the gleaming polished-steel vault stood in full view of the public as the sculpture feature of the composition. It was the special creation of industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss. No other element of a bank is more complicated or complex, and, with its shining tooled steel, more beautiful. Other innovations followed, such as the brilliant t idea introduced by Gordon Bunshaft, of abstract sculptor Harry Bertoia's monumental metal screen running the entire length of the second-floor banking level. Gordon Bunshaft devised one of the finest spaces conceived by man since Santa Sophia, particularly in the subtle spacing of columns, making them either disappear or gain prominence in the design. Mike Rapuano, my classmate at Cornell in landscape architecture, designed a beautiful park on the penthouse roof. The final result was the creation of a noble space with a noble park on top. Lewis Mumford called the glass bank a lantern, and surprised us all by relating the design to the Victorians and to the eighteenth century dreams of all glass cities. Mumford spun a glamorous and exciting aura around Skid's bank and suggested facets of creative genius of which neither Skid, Hughes, or Bunshaft had ever dreamed."

In the 1990's, the bank unfortunately began to subdivide its space and the great sense of openness was diminished although it remains a gem.

On October 30, 2009, Joey Arak, senior editor at Curbed.com, ran an item on this building with the headline "Modern Fifth Avenue Gem Now a 'Big Box Opportunity.'"

"A tipster," the article continued, "noticed a for-lease sign up in the window, which steered us to the listing, which led us to a phone call with broker David Badner, who told us Chase bank declined to pick up the option on the final year of its lease. Elie Tahari owns the building (and occupies the top floors) and is willing to lease out just the old Chase space or the entire building, hence the big-box potential. Badner tells us several 'major apparel retailers' have scoped out the space. Would the building become any less significant if, say, Baby Gap moved in? (11/1/09)

In a March 10, 2010 article in The New York Post, Lois Weiss reported that "Vornado Realty Trust is swooping in to buy the landmarked 510 Fifth Avenue."

"Sources," the article continued, "say the real estate investment trust led by Steven Roth and Michael Fascitelli is trying to work out a deal for the five-story jewel box on the southwest corner of 43rd St., which has a small Chase branch in the mezzanine. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, this 61,159 footer was the first glass bank in Manhattan when it was completed in 1954 for Manufacturers Hanover Trust. Taken over by Chase, the building was sold to Tahl-Propp Equities in 2000 for $22 million while its 145,000 feet of excess air rights were retained by Chase. City records show a current mortgage for $33 million. The owners, represented by Norman Bobrow & Associates, have had a difficult time capitalizing on the building's retail potential due to the landmark status that protects features such as the giant vault door."