The Solow Building, also known as 9 West 57th Street, is a skyscraper in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Completed in 1974 and designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, it is west of Fifth Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets, overlooking the Plaza Hotel and Central Park. The building measures tall with 50 stories. 9 West 57th Street was developed by Sheldon Solow, who named the building after himself and continued to manage and own the building until his death in 2020. Since then, it has been owned by his son Stefan Soloviev.
The Solow Building's north and south facades curve inward from ground level to the 18th floor, where the tower rises upward to the 50th story. The north and south walls are made of gray-tinted glass, while the west and east facades are clad in travertine. The design was largely criticized upon the building's completion, with many architectural critics regarding the building as a disruptive presence on the skyline. There is a travertine plaza at ground level, with a red sculpture of the digit "9" on the 57th Street side. The first floor contains a private art collection and the basement includes the Brasserie 8 1/2 restaurant. The building contains about of rentable space.
Solow acquired the building's site in the 1960s from numerous owners, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which had originally planned its own skyscraper at the site. Construction of the Solow Building commenced in 1969, and Avon Products took up a third of the space, becoming the major tenant. Since opening, the Solow Building's office stories have been occupied for some of the highest rates in the city, being rented largely to law and financial firms. The lower stories were less successful; the basement was unused until 2000, when Brasserie 8 1/2 opened there. During his lifetime, Solow was obstinate about several aspects of the building's operation, and he was involved in several lawsuits against tenants.
Site The Solow Building is at 9 West 57th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, just south of Central Park, between Fifth Avenue to the east and Sixth Avenue to the west. It contains frontage on 57th Street to the south and 58th Street to the north. The Solow Building's site covers . It measures along 57th Street, with a depth of between 57th and 58th Streets. The Solow Building is near the Park Lane Hotel and the Plaza Hotel to the north, Grand Army Plaza and the General Motors Building to the northeast, the Bergdorf Goodman Building and the Paris Theater to the east, and the Crown Building and 17 West 56th Street to the south.
The surrounding stretch of 57th Street was part of an artistic hub during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The southern part of the site was occupied by the Pace Gallery, which operated there from 1963 to 1968. On the northern part of the site was a 14-story building at 4 West 58th Street, containing the Paris Theater. The Solow Building also replaced a six-story loft building on 26 West 58th Street that had housed the office of modernist architect Paul Rudolph. The rest of the site was largely composed of low-rise commercial and apartment buildings. The Solow Building, as well as the Squibb Building at 40 West 57th Street, were among the first high-rise office developments to be built on West 57th Street following the 1961 Zoning Resolution.
Architecture 9 West 57th Street was designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) and developed by Sheldon Solow. It was built by the Diesel Construction Company. When constructed, the building was also referred to as "9 West" and "Tower 9". The building is tall, with 50 stories. Weidlinger Associates was the structural engineer and Code Consultants Inc. was the code consultant.
According to Solow, the building was designed to have "magnificent views" and areas for workers to relax because "such surroundings attract and keep good workers to such a degree that corporate tenants are willing to pay premium rents to get them". The building is distinguished by curved facades on its northern and southern elevations, which taper at higher stories. 9 West 57th Street was the first major structure in New York City to be developed with a sloped facade.
Form and facade The north and south facades curve inward from ground level to the 18th floor, where it rises upward to the 50th story. The building is narrower at the 18th floor than at ground level. The massing is similar to the W.R. Grace Building, completed around the same time; the initial, rejected design of the Solow Building was used for the Grace Building. The sloped design came from an early concept in which the elevators were placed outside the main structural core, though this idea was not feasible. Bunshaft instead decided to use curved facades on the north and south elevations, avoiding the need for rectangular setbacks. One author compared the curves to the face of a ski slope.
The north and south walls are made of gray-tinted glass. Immediately above the ground level, the north and south elevations end in a large gutter, which collects rainwater. Custom rails were installed on the facade for the window-washing scaffolds. The glass panels consist of windows as well as spandrels in between stories. The panels are attached to the superstructure by black gaskets made of neoprene.
The western and eastern facades are clad in tan bands of travertine limestone. On either side is a narrow window opening spanning several stories. The building's structural steel bracing crosses diagonally in front of these windows. The sections of the steel bracing in front of the windows are coated with black aluminum.
Plaza
The building has a setback of from 57th Street and from 58th Street. A plaza extends in front of the building on both 57th and 58th Streets. The plaza is clad in travertine and extends the width of the block from 57th to 58th Streets.
A red sculpture of the digit "9" on the 57th Street side of the building was designed by Ivan Chermayeff. The sculpture weighs and measures about high by wide. It faces east toward Fifth Avenue and is supported by a three-story column in the basement. The sculpture was installed because Solow thought the plaza as designed was excessively large, and also because Solow wanted to draw attention away from the bare walls of other nearby buildings. The idea for the sculpture had come after Chermayeff had joked that the facade could be a "launching pad" for the "9". After the sculpture was first installed in 1972, Solow had removed the sculpture for a year due to a dispute over where it should be placed. He ultimately agreed to install the sculpture on the sidewalk, initially paying the city $1,000 annually in rent. By the 1990s, the sculpture was described in The New York Times as "a cultural artifact as well as the building's signature".
The 58th Street side of the plaza contains Moonbird, a sculpture by Joan Miró. The sculpture, originally commissioned in 1966, is tall and made of bronze. Solow installed Moonbird in 1994, saying that "it is one of my very favorite sculptures"; he already had a print of the same work. Before Moonbird was installed, the 58th Street side of the plaza had a "mobile" by Alexander Calder. Solow removed the mobile after realizing the work could fall onto pedestrians in the wind.
Features
Basement and lobby
9 West 57th Street is structurally supported by columns above the public plaza, creating the appearance of an arcade. Storefronts on either side were originally planned. Two basement shopping levels were originally connected to the plaza by two pair of escalators, one each on 57th and 58th Streets. The retail space, covering , remained empty for thirty years after the building's completion. Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates then designed the Brasserie 8 1/2 restaurant in the space, which opened in 2000. The 230-seat restaurant covers and is accessed by a stair inside a cylindrical entrance from the lobby. The basement also has a parking garage.
The lobby was designed to extend the entire block between 57th and 58th Streets, with glass walls on either side. The lobby is clad with marble. During the Solow Building's construction, Bunshaft had said that marble "is beautiful, it weathers beautifully and it expresses structure in design". Because Solow wanted to maintain an "exclusive aura", he banned tenants from using phones in the lobby. The 58th Street side of the lobby has a newsstand and a retail area.
The first floor also houses Solow's private art gallery, including works by Franz Kline, Henri Matisse, and Alberto Giacometti. The gallery is managed under the non-profit Solow Art and Architecture Foundation, which receives tax exemptions from being nominally open to the public. However, the gallery is perpetually closed, even to tenants. Some of the artwork was visible from the street despite being inaccessible. This prompted criticism and the creation of a parody website describing the gallery's operating hours as "Monday, inaccessible; Tuesday, closed; Wednesday, no public hours; Thursday, not open; Friday, same as the rest of the week; Saturday, none; Sunday, absolutely not". After Solow's death in late 2020, his widow Mia Fonssagrives-Solow announced she would open his art collection to the public.
Upper stories
The second floor was designed with a ceiling, although a mezzanine above the second floor was erected during the Solow Building's construction. Designed by Bernard M. Deschler for the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, the mezzanine was installed because Morgan Guaranty wanted to keep its investment managers and research specialists near each other. The mezzanine hangs from the ceiling using metal alloy bars. The second floor and mezzanine is still marketed as a trading floor . The fourth floor contains a two-story mechanical space, which is hidden on the exterior.
The typical upper story has a rectangular layout around a service core in the center, which contains the building's elevators and stairs. The upper stories are served by 24 elevators, which are divided into elevator banks serving different groups of floors. Above the 23rd story, the north facade has a direct view of Central Park. Overall, the tower has a gross floor area of about , with 33 elevators in total. There is about of amenity space on the 27th floor, including a 40-seat coffee lounge and a meeting room for over 100 people. In addition, there is a health club with a salt room, fitness equipment, plunge pools, and a golf simulator. The upper stories also include a tenant-only restaurant, Vista.
History The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) had acquired the lots at 10–20 West 58th Street in 1962, with plans to build a skyscraper of between 30 and 40 stories. The LDS Church planned to rent some of the building's space as offices. The church had also acquired a site at 11 West 57th Street. Sheldon Solow started acquiring parcels on 57th and 58th Streets in 1965, hiring several brokers to avoid raising suspicion that he was assembling a large lot. Solow ended up acquiring 17 parcels, including the LDS site, ultimately assembling a site between 57th and 58th Streets. While Solow could not outright buy 4 West 58th Street, he acquired a leasehold on the building, as well as air rights that allowed an increase in the size of his proposed skyscraper. Bergdorf Goodman's president Andrew Goodman refused to sell the store building or its air rights to Solow.
Construction