Once again the lack of vision among the megacollector class continues to astound and disappoint. Gordon Bunshaft’s Manufacturers Trust Company office has been an architectural masterpiece and landmark since it opened seventy years ago tomorrow (September 22, 1954). Though, reader, it has seen some stuff.
Its travails as a belatedly landmarked, mall-grade retail space are well-known and look to continue. Preservation guru Ted Grunewald reports on social media that there is a public hearing next week to reconfigure the building’s signature spaces on the first two floors, again. The new tenant is GU [say the letters], the Old Navy of Uniqlo, famous in Japan for their 990-yen jeans. And honestly, if GU’s gonna undo some of the bleak retailmaxing damage of Vornado’s Joe Fresh/The North Face/Tahari pop-up/WEB3 Vape Shop era, let them take a crack, I guess? But that’s not the problem here.
The problem is that Vornado sold 510 Fifth Avenue last year for just $50 million. FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS. People spent that on one Rothko. Hell, people have spent more than that on one Beeple. FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS. The deal went down in August 2023 as part of a larger liquidation of Vornado’s retail space portfolio, but still.
That means the art collectors who should have bought the Whitney Breuer building for a $100 million house in June 2023, and who lost it to Sotheby’s and the overleveraged Patrick Drahi, also could have bought 510 Fifth and turned it into a house. So GU as in, Gee, you failed to score a 65,000 sf, urban, mid-century architectural icon and adapt it into a slicked-out, modernist art palazzo not once, but TWICE in a matter of weeks.
Granted, it might take a little more vision to turn 510 Fifth Ave. into a house. GU’s Landmarks Preservation Committee petition [pdf] makes the current setup look pretty dire, like a warehouse sale in an old bank. Wait, I mean—that’s a skills issue.
That floor is landmarked, that lighting situation is landmarked. The Bertoia—actually, there are two Bertoias, the screen and a cloud/chandelier, and they not convey. They’re on loan from Chase, though I’m sure a credible collector could sort that out. For those worried about quite so much glass, bring back the gold curtains. Retreat to the recessed penthouse and secret roof garden, visible only to the accountants or dentists or whoever’s left next door, on the backside of 500 Fifth Avenue.
And while Fifth & 43rd is no Madison & 75th, Bloomberg did used to have offices upstairs. And the neighborhood is clearly nice enough for Stephen Schwarzman to spend $100 million to put his name on the library. And it’s a five minute walk to the clubs, and Grand Central, so an optimal commute to your mid-century country house.
Previously, related: The Whitney House
Oh, Vornado of the Noguchi ceiling and lobby destroying Vornados?