The Fuller Building is a skyscraper at 57th Street and Madison Avenue in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Walker & Gillette, it was erected between 1928 and 1929. The building is named for its original main occupant, the Fuller Construction Company, which moved from the Flatiron Building.

The 40-story building is designed in the Art Deco style and contains numerous setbacks as mandated by the 1916 Zoning Resolution. The facade of the lowest six stories are clad with black granite and contain large display windows for stores, as well as large windows for art galleries. The triple-height main entrance is decorated with architectural sculpture by Elie Nadelman. The remaining stories are largely designed with light cast stone and smaller windows. The interior has richly decorated vestibules and lobby featuring marble walls, bronze detailing, and mosaic floors.

The Fuller Building was constructed as part of the artistic hub that occupied East 57th Street during the early 20th century. At the time of its completion, the Fuller Building housed several art galleries with the address 41 East 57th Street, as well as offices at the address 595 Madison Avenue. It was purchased several times over the years before being acquired in 1999 by Vornado Realty Trust, its owner . The Fuller Building and its interior became New York City designated landmarks in 1986.

Site

The Fuller Building is in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, on the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 57th Street. The largely rectangular land lot covers approximately , The Four Seasons Hotel New York is on the same block to the east. Other nearby buildings include 432 Park Avenue to the south; 590 Madison Avenue to the southwest; LVMH Tower and the L. P. Hollander Company Building to the west; the General Motors Building to the northwest; and the Ritz Tower to the east. constructed in 1870. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, East 57th Street largely contained homes and structures built for the arts. The Central Presbyterian Church bought the Madison Avenue Church structure in 1915. Many of the residential structures on 57th Street were replaced with offices, shops, and art galleries by the 1920s. In April 1928, the Charles of London Corporation was planning to buy the Central Church building, with plans to redevelop the site with a 30-story skyscraper. Ultimately, the Fuller Construction Company purchased the Central Church building, and the Central Church moved to Park Avenue.

Architecture

The Fuller Building was designed by Walker & Gillette in the Art Deco style, although in a very conservative fashion. The building is tall and contains 40 stories. The building's design contains relatively little ornament, as much of the design emphasis is on its shape, as well as the contrast of granite and stone on the facade. The Fuller Building contains numerous setbacks to comply with the 1916 Zoning Resolution, and the exterior contains various textures of stone to provide vertical and horizontal emphases on different parts of the facade. The exterior uses Rockwood stone and black Swedish granite.

Christopher Gray wrote in The New York Times in 1995 that the building was "a jazz-age testament to the emerging commercial chic of 57th Street".

Form

The six-story base occupies the entire lot, and the setbacks are largely restricted to the fifteen stories above the base. The base was intended for stores and galleries; the set-back midsection was for art dealers; and the narrow tower was for businesses. These differing uses were to be reflected by the differing materials used on the facade, as well as the setbacks themselves.

The outer sections of the southern elevation on 57th Street, and the southern section of the western elevation on Madison Avenue, contain setbacks on the 11th, 13th, and 15th floors, with black stone highlights at the tops of the setbacks. The eastern elevation has setbacks at the 10th, 13th, and 15th floors, which blend with the setbacks on the eastern section of the 57th Street elevation. The northern elevation contains no setbacks.

At the 16th through 21st stories on 57th Street, there are setbacks at every floor except the 18th. Along this elevation of the facade, the center two vertical bays project slightly from the 17th to 20th stories. Above the 20th story, the building rises as a continuous rectangular tower. Along the southern side, facing 57th Street, the facade consists of eight bays. There are two entrances at the base: the main entrance on 57th Street and the secondary one on Madison Avenue. In general, the Fuller Building's art galleries have tended to use the address 41 East 57th Street, while the offices have used the address 595 Madison Avenue. Above this sign, at the fourth story, is a limestone sculptural group designed by Elie Nadelman.

The secondary entrance is a single-story opening in the northernmost bay on Madison Avenue. The Madison Avenue entrance contains a brass service elevator door on the left and a brass-framed glass double door on the right. Atop these doors, but beneath the second story, is a sign with the stone letters . The rest of the base is designed similarly on both street facades.

Upper stories

At the seventh floor, the design of the facade changes to a light-colored limestone cladding with black granite accenting. Centered above the 57th Street entrance, on the seventh through 16th floors, are five bays, each with four windows per floor, which correspond to openings at the base. Within these bays, each story is separated by horizontal bands that project slightly from the windows. Along 57th Street, the outer bays on the seventh through 16th floors consist of single-width windows with limestone piers. On the eastern facade, there are horizontal and vertical yellow brick bands contrasting with a darker background.

thumb|Upper story detail (center right) with the Four Seasons Hotel in the background

Above the 20th story, the west, south, and east facades are designed identically and are each six bays wide. When the Fuller Building was completed, it contained a then-novel vertical fire alarm system, with direct lines to the New York City Fire Department at every other floor, as well as tanks and standpipes throughout the height of the building.

Lobby

The lobby is T-shaped in plan, Just inside either entrance are small vestibules with doors leading to the main lobby. The Madison Avenue vestibule is similar in design, except it has three doors to the lobby, whereas the 57th Street vestibule has four. Additionally, a stair to the basement is on the northern side of the Madison Avenue lobby.

thumb|Interior of the T-shaped lobby, seen from its southern (57th Street) leg

The main lobby walls have similar designs to the vestibules, except the dark marble pilasters are placed in regular intervals along the light-tan marble surface. A black frieze with a fret pattern runs atop the entirety of all the walls. These mosaics were made by Vincent Foscato in Long Island City.

The Madison Avenue hallway contains nine elevators at the intersection with the 57th Street hallway. The south wall of the lobby has three elevators: a freight elevator west of the 57th Street hallway and two passenger elevators east of the elevators. The north wall contains six passenger elevators. In total, the Fuller Building has ten elevators, of which eight are for passengers and two are for freight. The arrangement of vertical storefronts and the lobby's design were intended to "give the greatest attraction to the exteriors of the shops", according to Douglas Grant Scott of the United States Realty and Construction Company, the Fuller Company's parent corporation. Rents for the stores was initially calculated by averaging the rates for the first through sixth floors; in typical buildings, space on higher floors was subjected to lower rates than space on lower floors.

In the years after its opening, many galleries were opened on the storefronts in the lowest six floors. The Fuller Building became "one of Manhattan's most prestigious gallery addresses", as The New York Times described it. The gallery tenants over the years have included the Nailya Alexander Gallery, Andrew Crispo, the Charles Egan Gallery, Marlborough-Gerson, and the Zabriskie Gallery.

The 7th to 15th stories were designed as spaces for interior decorators and art dealers to sell merchandise. The 16th to 40th stories were designed as offices. At the roof, Walker and Gillette designed an eleven-room penthouse apartment for J. H. Carpenter, president of the Fuller Construction Company at the time of the building's completion. Unlike other architecture firms of the time, Fuller's firm intended to handle all aspects of building construction except for the design, similar to the modern general contractor. Following Fuller's death in 1900, his son-in-law Harry S. Black took over as president of the Fuller Company and made it a subsidiary of the new United States Realty and Construction Company. Shortly after Fuller's death, Black constructed what is now the Flatiron Building at Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street for the company's headquarters. That structure was supposed to be called the "Fuller Building" in honor of the late Fuller, but its triangular flatiron shape led to the popular name "Flatiron Building" instead. By the 1920s, the center of business in Manhattan had moved northward to Midtown. Walker and Gillette were hired to draw the plans.

To fund the construction, United States Realty sold $5 million in bonds and $3 million from debentures in January 1929. The Fuller Company planned to name the new structure "Fuller Building", transferring the name from the Flatiron Building. The Fuller Company labeled both entrances of its new building prominently, likely in an attempt to prevent the structure from being mislabeled like its predecessor had been. The building was completed on September 7, 1929. as well as McGibbon & Co., one of the city's oldest linen merchants. Storefront and basement space was also leased to Sally Gowns Inc. and McGibben & Co., both clothing companies, and Edward Garratt Inc., furniture dealer. Galleries moved to the building as well, including the F. Kleinberger Galleries, the Pierre Matisse Gallery, the French Art Galleries, and manuscript and autograph dealer Thomas F. Madigan Inc. The office story tenants included the French Consul, food processor Standard Brands, book publisher Jordanoff Aviation Corporation, developer Paul Tishman, financier Frederick Lewisohn, former New York governor Herbert H. Lehman, and businessman Bernard Baruch.

The Penroy Realty Company. led by Miami-based realtor Kenneth S. Keyes, bought the building on behalf of "out-of-town" investors in January 1949. At the time, the Fuller Construction Company still maintained its executive offices there. Shortly afterward, the building received a $3 million first mortgage from Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance. In January 1961, investor Lawrence Wien purchased the building's 33-year lease from the Fuller Building Corporation, with two options for 25-year renewals. Four months later, a syndicate headed by Irving Brodsky and Richard Gittlin bought a 99-year leasehold for the land from the Fuller Building Corporation. Leases on , about half of the office space, were set to expire in 1962, and it was renting at a rate below the average for the neighborhood. As a result, the owners decided to renovate the building's mechanical features such as acoustical ceilings, fluorescent lighting, and air conditioning. Simultaneously, new or existing tenants signed leases for the remaining office space. In 1968, Brodsky signed a contract to purchase the Fuller Building on behalf of the Fred F. French Company, which paid cash to cover the $4.2 million mortgage.

By the late 20th century, the Fuller Building had become a center for art galleries. Not only was 57th Street still an artistic hub, but also, building management was willing to accommodate each gallery's specific needs, such as large doorways, minimal window space, and heavy floor slabs. The Fuller Company continued to occupy the building until the early 1980s. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the exterior and lobby interior as city landmarks in 1986. The mortgage holder L&B Group retook the building in December 1994 and subsequently started renovating the building. The changes included replacement windows, a facade cleaning, and upgrading the interior to modern standards. By then, the Fuller Building had been overshadowed by the construction of the much taller Four Seasons Hotel on the adjacent lot, which had been completed in 1993. the next month, the company closed on its purchase. Vornado announced in 2002 that it planned to renovate the base to designs by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, though this plan received some opposition. The proposal called for replacing the glass above the main entrance with "electronic glass", which could alternate between being transparent or opaque, as well as adding similar glass above the lobby ceiling. Coach Inc. opened its global flagship store in the building in 2005. Coach abruptly closed its store in January 2020. A Berluti flagship opened in part of the former Coach space in December 2020, and a two-level Fendi flagship store opened in another part of Coach's space in July 2021. By the end of 2021, the building was 81 percent occupied, and its tenants included fashion firms such as Bottega Veneta and Tom Ford.

See also

  • Art Deco architecture of New York City
  • List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan from 14th to 59th Streets

References

Citations

Sources

  • Midtown Book, The Fuller Building
  • Images from Architecture and Building (1930)