1221 Avenue of the Americas
also 137 West 48th Street, 129 West 48th Street, 120 West 49th Street | Times Square | built 1971
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1963
Wallace Harrison draws up the XYZ buildings that expand Rockefeller Center
The three towers known as the XYZ buildings, an expansion of Rockefeller Center, were first sketched out in 1963 by Wallace Harrison of Harrison & Abramovitz, who was the Rockefeller family's architect. The letters X, Y and Z follow their heights. 1221 Avenue of the Americas is the Y building: 51 stories and 674 feet, the second-tallest of the three, between 1251 and 1211.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1972
McGraw-Hill moves its headquarters into the tower, staying until 2015
The publisher McGraw-Hill made the tower its headquarters in 1972, and the building was long known as the McGraw-Hill Building. McGraw Hill Financial stayed until 2015. Later tenants include Deloitte, the law firms Mayer Brown and White & Case, and Sirius XM Satellite Radio, which has its headquarters and broadcast studios in the building.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1973
A bare red-granite-and-glass tower opens behind a sunken courtyard that held the Sun Triangle sculpture
The facade has no ornament, alternating red granite piers with glass stripes to stress height, above a seven-story base, and the tower sits 115 feet back from Sixth Avenue. The sunken courtyard formerly held the Sun Triangle, a 49-foot steel sculpture by Athelstan Spilhaus aligned to the sun at solstices and equinoxes. The lobby is dark red terrazzo and red marble, carrying sayings by Plato and John F. Kennedy.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1999
Nicholas White is trapped for about 41 hours in an express elevator
On Friday night, October 15, 1999, a power dip stopped an express elevator between the 13th and 14th floors with Business Week employee Nicholas White inside. Security guards spotted him on surveillance cameras around 4 p.m. on Sunday, nearly 41 hours later. White sued the building's managers and the elevator maintenance company for negligence and settled four years later. The New Yorker posted the surveillance video in 2008.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2006
The Devil Wears Prada films its fictional magazine headquarters in the lobby of 1221 Avenue of the Americas
The 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada used the building's exterior and lobby for the fictional Elias-Clarke headquarters. Saturday Night Live's opening titles show the tower seen from below, and radio shows including The Howard Stern Show broadcast from the building's Sirius XM studios. The sequel, released in 2026, filmed here in 2025, drawing crowds.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2008
A time-lapse video of Nicholas White's 41 hours in the elevator becomes a YouTube sensation
The New Yorker posts a three-minute sped-up film of Nicholas White's 1999 entrapment, to accompany a story on the history of elevators. The Daily News calls it the scariest video on the Internet that week. The clip shows White pacing, trying to pry open a roof hatch, reading the items in his wallet, and finally lying facedown.
Source: nydailynews.com
- 2023
A $50 million renovation of the entrance plaza and retail space is finished
A renovation of the Sixth Avenue entrance plaza and retail space, announced in 2017 and under way by 2022, finished in 2023 at a price of $50 million. The building is owned by Rockefeller Group, which belongs to Mitsubishi Estate. It earned a LEED green-building certification in 2009.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2025
The Devil Wears Prada 2 shoots at 1221 Avenue of the Americas, drawing fans to the lobby
The sequel again uses the building for the fictional Runway magazine offices. In July 2025, fans and paparazzi gather outside to see the actors come out of the lobby and to catch their waves from the windows of Quorum by Convene, an event space that White & Case also uses. The finished film turns the venue's gallery into a cafeteria for a scene with Anne Hathaway's and Stanley Tucci's characters.
“…drawing fans and paparazzi to the streets in July 2025 to watch the actors exit the building lobby and wave from the windows of Quorum by Convene…”
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- 1221 Avenue of the AmericasWikipedia
Nearby
- James Earl Jones Theatre138 West 48th Street | 11 entries
- 1251 Avenue of the Americas (Exxon Building)1251 Avenue of the Americas | 7 entries
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- Church of St. Mary the Virgin145 West 46th Street | 9 entries
- Time & Life Building1271 Avenue of the Americas | 16 entries