32 Avenue of the Americas
32 Avenue of the Americas is a 27-story, telecommunications building in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Completed in 1932, it was one of several Art Deco-style telecommunications buildings designed by Ralph Thomas Walker of Voorhees, Gmelin and Walker in the early 20th century. 32 Avenue of the Americas spans the entire block bounded by Walker Street, Lispenard Street, Church Street, and Avenue of the Americas.
32 Avenue of the Americas was the last skyscraper designed by Walker in Lower Manhattan as well as one of the largest telecommunications buildings from that architect. Its construction was undertaken in three stages. The first, known as the Walker–Lispenard Building or 24 Walker Street, was designed in 1911–1914 by Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz and McKenzie, Voorhees & Gmelin. In the late 1910s, 24 Walker Street was expanded by seven stories. The current skyscraper is the result of the final building campaign, which took place between 1929 and 1932. Upon completion, 32 Avenue of the Americas was the largest building in the world that specifically handled long-distance calling. The building remains in use as a data/communications center, but is no longer owned by AT&T.
32 Avenue of the Americas's design features a complex massing and numerous setbacks. The brick facade is composed of numerous hues and is topped by parapets at the roof. The other ornamental elements give 32 Avenue of the Americas the impression of being both progressive and technologically up-to-date, reflecting its interior use. Inside, the main lobby contains numerous murals that reflect the building's use as a communications hub. The exterior and lobby were designated as official New York City landmarks in 1991.
Architecture
32 Avenue of the Americas is 27 stories and tall; this height includes two spires added to the original height. It is located in the Tribeca neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. It occupies a trapezoidal city block bounded by Sixth Avenue to the west, Walker Street to the south, Church Street to the east, and Lispenard Street to the north. The Walker and Lispenard Street sides are parallel to each other and perpendicular to the Church Street side. The Sixth Avenue side runs diagonally, intersecting both Lispenard and Walker Streets.The building was designed by Ralph Walker of Voorhees, Gmelin and Walker in the Art Deco style. 32 Avenue of the Americas was one of several Art Deco buildings in the New York City area that Walker designed, after the Barclay–Vesey Building, New Jersey Bell Headquarters Building, 60 Hudson Street, and 1 Wall Street and 101 Willoughby Street. It was also the last major skyscraper Walker designed in Lower Manhattan. Within the New York City area, McKenzie, Voorhees & Gmelin designed numerous other buildings for AT&T or its affiliates during the same time span, and the firm had also previously built structures for AT&T elsewhere in New York state. 32 Avenue of the Americas was one of several technologically advanced headquarters erected in the mid-20th century for communications and utility companies in the U.S. Its design program was mainly composed of woven motifs, because AT&T had described long-distance switchboard operators as "Weavers of Speech".
Form
32 Avenue of the Americas contains numerous setbacks on its exterior. Though setbacks in New York City skyscrapers were mandated by the 1916 Zoning Resolution in order to allow light and air to reach the streets below, they later became a defining feature of the Art Deco style. The setbacks have been characterized as looking like a "brick mountain" or a "steel skeleton draped with a finely crafted brick curtain". According to architectural historian Anthony W. Robins, 32 Avenue of the Americas is more geometrically organized than 60 Hudson Street and the Barclay–Vesey Building, as it was the last of the group to be completed.32 Avenue of the Americas includes portions of two structures: the original Lispenard Building, completed in 1914, and the AT&T Long Distance Building, an expansion completed in 1932. The bulky 24-story massing of the Lispenard Building's northern and southern elevations were incorporated into the expanded structure, exceeding the sloping "envelope" mandated by the 1916 zoning law. Above the original building rose the 27-story "spine", aligned west/east.
The western elevation, along Sixth Avenue, consisted of a "screen" with 15-story wings on either side of a central portion rising 16 stories. Behind the 15-story sections rise two 21-story wings, followed by the original structure and the "spine". The other three elevations were designed around the paired window layouts of the original building's north and south elevations. The northeastern corner of the building contains setbacks at the 15th, 21st, and 22nd stories. The northwestern corner contains a diagonal chamfer.
Facade
A brick facade was used for 32 Avenue of the Americas and for Walker's other communications buildings, since he preferred the material for its texture and its flexibility in color combinations. The Sixth Avenue elevation is symmetrical, with a two-story main entrance in the center. The entrance portal is designed like a proscenium arch, with a bronze entrance grille above a set of bronze doors. Adjacent to the entrance portal is a sealed doorway leading to the Canal Street station of the New York City Subway, served by the ; an open staircase to that station is on Sixth Avenue directly to the south. The entrance portal is flanked by two flagpoles at the third floor. Another recessed entrance exists on Church Street to the east; this entrance is smaller, containing a bronze frame and marble panels above a set of bronze doors. A garage door is located on the northern facade, with a roll-down metal gate, and there are also numerous auxiliary doors.The remainder of the facade is emphasized by piers with a V-shaped texture, as well as spandrels with ornamental patterns. The walls are designed with undulating patterns that generally run at an angle to the adjacent streets. The bottom of the facade contains a water table made of pink granite. The original building mainly consists of a red-and-brown brick facade. On the original facade, each vertical bay includes a pair of six-over-six sash windows made of wood, or a pair of ventilation louvers. The newer portions of the facade are made of bricks tinted in different shades of red, orange, brown, and gray; these primarily have a rough texture with thick mortar joints between each brick. On the newer sections, each bay contains single or paired six-over-six sash windows made of steel.
Features
32 Avenue of the Americas contains of office space. The heights of each floor were based around the original building's floor heights. The top three floors were built atop a, steel truss, which rested on the roofs of the two new wings, above the height of the original building. The loads on the truss were mitigated by the usage of lightweight concrete.Lobby
The building's ground-level lobby is composed of a corridor from Sixth Avenue to Church Street. Both ends of the lobby are approached by entrance vestibules with two bronze revolving doors flanked by two bronze hinged doors. The Sixth Avenue side contains an alcove in its vestibule, which leads to an auditorium. Three elevator-lobby corridors branch off from the main corridor at a 90-degree angle: the two corridors on the north side of the lobby each have a bank of elevators, while the corridor on the south side leads to a bank of four elevators. The Church Street side of the lobby is supported by a series of piers along the center of the corridor, and contains two perpendicular bends, giving the lobby an "S" shape. An elevator bank with two elevators is located on the southern wall of the lobby near the Church Street entrance.A white terrazzo floor with gray stripes extends through much of the lobby. The walls contain pink marble at their bottoms, above which are vertical ceramic tiles separated by red-tile pilasters. The ceiling has a surface of mauve stucco. The lobby also contains features such as bronze ventilation louvers and indirect-lighting fixtures. Minor alterations have been made in the lobby over the years. On the Church Street side, the elevator bank used to contain two additional openings; throughout the lobby, signs and lighting have also been changed. The lobby also contains an allegorical mosaic designed by Hildreth Meière, who also designed the interior of 1 Wall Street. On the southern wall of the Sixth Avenue section is a tiled map of the world, measuring. The map contains the caption "Telephone Wires and Radio Unite to Make Neighbors of Nations".
The ceiling mosaic contains allegorical representations of Asia, Europe, Australia, and Africa, connected by stylized telephone lines radiating from two female messengers in the center of the ceiling. Asia is depicted as an empress with an elephant and tiger beside her, with a pagoda in the background. The representation of Europe wears a crown and holds a spear and orb while leaning on an Ionic-style capital; there is a Roman aqueduct, St. Peter's Basilica, and Notre-Dame de Paris in the background. The representation of Australia is shown holding a sheaf of wheat, beside a sheep and a kangaroo. An Egyptian queen, depicting Africa, is shown holding a fan, with two lions and the Egyptian pyramids behind her. The messengers in the center are flanked by an eagle and a condor, representing North and South America. As a cost-cutting measure during the Depression, the ceiling mosaics were executed in a silhouette mosaic style, in which the outlines and details are made of traditional mosaic tile, and the interior areas are filled in with colored plaster. Meière had originally planned to decorate the ceiling with images of female telephone operators, but AT&T rejected those plans. One of the female messengers in the center of the ceiling is wearing a stiletto heel, which may be a reference to Meière's original design.