Crown Building (Manhattan)
The Crown Building is a 25-story, building at 730 Fifth Avenue, on the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Constructed between 1920 and 1922 for the philanthropist August Heckscher, the structure was designed by Warren and Wetmore as an office building. The lower levels contain retail space, while the upper levels became the luxury Aman New York hotel and residences in 2022. The structure has been a New York City designated landmark since 2024.
The building's stepped setback design was regulated by the 1916 Zoning Resolution. Its exterior includes French Renaissance details and is divided into a nine-story base, a twelve-story shaft, and a four-story octagonal pyramidal roof. The facade is largely made of limestone, with brick and terracotta detailing, along with of gold leaf. The lower stories include retail stores, while the upper stories originally contained offices before they were redesigned by Jean-Michel Gathy in the 2020s. The upper stories are split up into 22 condominium residences, 83 hotel rooms, and amenity spaces such as a spa and three restaurants. Over the years, the building has received commentary for its general shape and for the design of its roof.
August Heckscher acquired land for the building from 1913 to 1918. After the Heckscher Building was completed, it housed several businesses and art galleries, and it was also the first home of the Museum of Modern Art. Heckscher lost the building to foreclosure in 1938. Charles F. Noyes and Joseph Durst bought the building in 1946 before reselling it four years later. It was renamed the Genesco Building in 1964 and sold again in 1966. The structure was purchased in 1981 by Philippine dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, and the name was changed to the Crown Building in 1983, after its crown-like look when illuminated at night. The Crown Building was the focus of various lawsuits after the fall of the Marcos regime, and in 1991, Bernard Spitzer and partners Marvin Winter and Jerome L. Greene acquired the building. In 2015, Michael Shvo and Russian billionaire Vladislav Doronin purchased the office portion of the building. OKO Group took over the upper stories, which were converted to hotel and residential use from 2019 to 2022.
Site
The Crown Building is at 730 Fifth Avenue, at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The land lot is composed of a rectangular site at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, as well as a connected site at 56th Street. The lot covers, with a frontage of on Fifth Avenue and a depth of along 57th Street. On the same block is the townhouse at 17 West 56th Street. The 712 Fifth Avenue skyscraper and the townhouses at 10 and 12 West 56th Street are one block south, 745 Fifth Avenue is directly to the northeast, and the Bergdorf Goodman Building and Solow Building are immediately across 57th Street to the north. Other nearby buildings include 3 East 57th Street to the northwest; the Tiffany & Co. flagship store, Trump Tower, and 590 Madison Avenue to the east; and the Corning Glass Building to the southeast.Fifth Avenue between 42nd Street and Central Park South was relatively undeveloped through the late 19th century. The surrounding area was once part of the common lands of the city of New York. The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 established Manhattan's street grid with lots measuring deep and wide. Upscale residences were constructed around Fifth Avenue following the American Civil War. These included two residences on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street: a mansion belonging to Frederic W. Stevens at the southwest corner, and the Cornelius Vanderbilt II House on the northwest corner. By the 1900s, that section of Fifth Avenue was becoming a commercial area, and stores were also developed on 57th Street in the 1910s. After about 1921, art galleries started to supplant residences on 57th Street, and other art galleries developed on the street in general.
The Crown Building is also near a former artistic hub around a two-block section of West 57th Street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway. The hub had been developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, after the opening of Carnegie Hall on Seventh Avenue in 1891. The area contained several headquarters of organizations such as the American Fine Arts Society, the Lotos Club, and the ASCE Society House. The Crown Building also had art-related tenants such as the Museum of Modern Art in the early 20th century. By the 21st century, the arts hub had largely been replaced with Billionaires' Row, a series of luxury skyscrapers around the southern end of Central Park.
Previous buildings
Before the Crown Building's construction, the site at 728 Fifth Avenue was occupied by a marble townhouse belonging to the businessman Charles W. Morse. The Morse family owned the house until it was sold at a foreclosure auction in 1910, then acquired by the businessman Harry Payne Whitney in May 1911.Next door at 2 West 57th Street was a mansion built from 1875 to 1876 for the lawyer and banker Frederic W. Stevens. The Stevens house, designed by George E. Harney, was smaller in scale compared to similar mansions along the avenue. The Stevens house's interior was undistinguished, except for a ballroom imported from Belgium; it also was acquired by the Whitney family by the 1910s.
Architecture
The Crown Building was designed by Charles D. Wetmore of Warren and Wetmore and completed in 1921 as the Heckscher Building. Wetmore had invested in the tower's construction along with the mining magnate August Heckscher. The structure includes details in the French Renaissance style, which had been selected because it was similar to the style used by the Cornelius Vanderbilt II Mansion nearby. Châteauesque decorations like salamanders were incorporated into the design. The Crown Building was one of the city's last skyscrapers to be completed before Art Deco architecture in New York City gained popularity. George Backer Inc. was the building's main contractor. Several other firms, including terracotta contractor New York Architectural Terra-Cotta and marble contractor A. R. Zicha Marble Co., provided construction materials and mechanical systems.Form and facade
The structure is 25 stories high, with a nine-story base, a twelve-story shaft, and four-story octagonal pyramidal roof. The building was divided into stores and showrooms on the lower levels and offices on the upper floors. In addition to the main structure on 57th Street and Fifth Avenue, there was a six-story annex facing 56th Street, which originally had its own entrance. The annex measured across, stood six stories high, and contained accommodations for employees who worked in the main structure. In 2021, the annex on 56th Street was replaced with a glass structure.The Crown Building's massing, or shape, was regulated by the 1916 Zoning Resolution. There are three primary setbacks, at the 10th, 13th, and 21st stories. The building is set back a different distance from each of the surrounding streets, and different setbacks were required for each elevation, since 56th Street is narrower than either 57th Street or Fifth Avenue. The shaft is located toward the southern end of the site, near the center of the block, and the setbacks on each side are complex and asymmetrical. In addition, when the Heckscher Building was completed, it could be seen from several miles north, across the nearby Central Park. After the building was converted into a hotel and residential building in the 2020s, outdoor terraces and swimming pools were added to the setbacks. Some of the setbacks also have glass railings.
The facade is made of limestone, buff-colored brick, and cream-colored architectural terracotta. The facade is decorated with of 23-karat gold leaf, which was added in the 1980s. According to a promotional brochure from the time, was the largest such application of gold leaf in a commercial building in the U.S. Terracotta reliefs drew attention to each of the main setbacks, while copper spandrel panels with reliefs were used to unite the windows on different stories. When the building opened, the spandrel panels were coated in acid to turn them bright green. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat lists the building as being tall. Originally, the building measured tall from the ground to the tip of its weather vane.
Base
The lowest nine stories are clad with Indiana limestone. There are cornices above the 2nd, 3rd, and 8th stories, dividing the building's base horizontally into four segments. At ground level, the northern facade along 57th Street measures across and is divided vertically into 18 bays. The eastern facade on Fifth Avenue is across and is divided into 11 bays. The lowest two stories contain double-height storefronts divided by limestone pilasters and topped by flat arches with small brackets and rounded corners. The storefronts were originally one story high, but their heights were increased at some point after 1983. One of the storefronts has a mesh facade whose design is patterned after a 1930s bracelet clasp. The original main entrance was at the far left end of the Fifth Avenue elevation; it contained four doors, flanked by columns and pilasters.Above the 2nd story, the northeast corner has a column with a spiraling pattern, which supports a pedestal with brackets atop the 8th story. For the most part, the windows on the 3rd through 9th stories are rectangular windows set within the limestone facade. After 1983, the third-story windows were widened to encompass several bays each. At the center of the Fifth Avenue and 57th Street elevations of the facade, some of the windows have gilded spandrel panels with faces, leaves, and fleurs-de-lis. The cornice above the 9th floor is topped by a balustrade made of stone or terracotta, which in turn is decorated with salamander motifs. At the 9th story, there is a statue of a woman at the northeast corner.