Time & Life Building
1271 Avenue of the Americas | also 1273 Avenue of the Americas, 1275 Avenue of the Americas, 120 West 51st Street | Times Square | built 1961
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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.
- 1955
Time Inc. weighs a move to Rye before Rockefeller Center offers it a 45 percent stake in the tower
By 1950 Time Inc. was thinking about moving to Rye, New York, as other big companies settled in Westchester, though editorial director John Shaw Billings argued that his staff needed the city's stimulation. Rockefeller Center's directors, eager to see construction proceed, offered Time a 45 percent interest in the project, the first time a tenant had been offered such a share. Time's board approved the plan in November 1955.
“…offered Time a forty-five per cent interest in the project. This was the first time that such an offer had been made to a tenant.”
- 1957
Excavation begins on a Sixth Avenue block of old trolley barn and the four-story Levy Building
Rockefeller Center bought the site in 1953. Digging for the Time & Life Building began in May 1957 on land that held a parking lot, once the New York Railway Company's trolley barn, and several buildings. The largest was the four-story Levy Building, which housed a cafeteria, dress shops and a bowling alley. Henry Luce and a Rockefeller attended the groundbreaking, along with three hundred employees. This describes earlier buildings on the lot.
- 1957
Marilyn Monroe presides at the revival of the Sidewalk Superintendents' Club at the Time & Life dig
In July 1957, two months after excavation began at the Sixth Avenue site, Rockefeller Center revived its Sidewalk Superintendents' Club, a group of members of the public who wanted to watch the construction. The club had lain idle for seventeen years. The actress Marilyn Monroe presided at its opening ceremonies.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1959
Henry Luce and Laurence Rockefeller lay the cornerstone of the $78 million Time & Life Building
The tower cost $78 million. Luce and Laurence S. Rockefeller, the new chairman of Rockefeller Center, laid the cornerstone in June 1959, and the 1.5-million-square-foot tower could take tenants by October. Besides Time, early tenants included Shell Oil, American Cyanamid, N.W. Ayer & Son, the American Petroleum Institute, Westinghouse Electric and the Rockefeller Foundation.
“…laid the cornerstone in June 1959 and by October the 1.5 million square foot tower was ready for occupancy.”
- 1959
Shell, American Cyanamid and others fill floors as the Time & Life tower becomes ready for occupancy
By October 1959 the tower, with 1.5 million square feet of space, could be occupied. Besides Time, floors were leased to Shell Oil, American Cyanamid, N. W. Ayer & Son, the American Petroleum Institute, Pan American International Oil, Westinghouse Electric and the Rockefeller Foundation. The George A. Fuller Company, a Chicago-founded builder of steel-frame towers, had been the contractor, and the building had cost $78 million.
“…by October the 1.5 million square foot tower was ready for occupancy. In addition to Time, floors were leased to the Shell Oil Company, American Cyanamid Company…”
- 1960
Girard, Ponti, Eames, Tabler and Nelson each design a piece of the tower's interior
Time Inc. filled its new headquarters with big design names. Alexander Girard created the street-level restaurant La Fonda del Sol, Gio Ponti the eighth-floor auditorium and terrace, and Charles Eames the Time magazine lobbies on the 27th through 29th floors. William Tabler designed the executive dining rooms on 47, and George Nelson & Company the Hemisphere Club and Tower Suite on 48, then the city's highest restaurant.
“Alexander Girard designed the ground floor restaurant, La Fonda del Sol; Gio Ponti, the 8th floor auditorium and terrace; Charles Eames the Time magazine lobbies…”
- 1960
Henry Luce doubts a Fritz Glarner mural, but three panels go up in the east corridor
Architect Wallace Harrison built a lit scale model of the Time Inc. reception center to persuade Henry Luce that an abstract painting by Fritz Glarner would beat backlit photographs. Luce, wary of modern art, said a mural did nothing for his business. Even so, a reduced version of Glarner's sketch was commissioned by January 1960, and the painter supervised hanging its three panels that April. Architectural Forum described the colors as cheering and puzzling visitors alike.
“Luce, who had significant reservations about modern art, was not persuaded…”
- 1961
Charles Eames designs the Time-Life Chair as a favor to Henry Luce
After designing chairs for Time Inc.'s offices, Charles Eames created a new chair in 1961 that became known as the Time-Life Chair. He made it as a favor to Henry Luce, who had earlier allowed Eames to draw on Time-Life archive photographs for his display at the 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow. A version of the chair is still made, modified for stability and current codes.
“Eames designed them as a favor to Henry Luce, the founder of Time and Life magazines…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1961
Craig Claiborne finds the Tower Suite a two-hour, six-course set meal at $8.50
When the Tower Suite opened on the 48th floor in 1961, New York Times critic Craig Claiborne noted how few restaurants take advantage of the city's views. Diners did not order from a menu; food was presented in a sequence of six courses that took at least two hours and sometimes three, for a set price of $8.50. By day the same room served as the members-only Hemisphere Club. Both were run by Joseph Baum.
Source: gothamist.com
- 1961
Josef Albers's relief Portals is installed in the west corridor of the lobby
Josef Albers's relief Portals went up in the lobby's west corridor in April 1961, a year after the Glarner mural across the core. Measuring 42 by 14 feet, it builds on his Homage to the Square series, setting thin nickel and bronze plates within bands of beige and white Carrara glass. Albers said the receding squares were meant to give the wall a sense of depth, and the silver square echoes the stainless steel nearby.
- 1965
Francis Brennan's relief of printer's type goes up in the lobby's north corridor
In January 1965 a relief about 13 by 6.5 feet was installed in the lobby's north corridor, showing every character of a font of printer's type. Time commissioned it from Francis Brennan, the former art director of Fortune. He called it a tribute to the basic working tool of the company, the letters of the alphabet. It follows Caslon 471, a typeface used in a Time employee's home workshop, and General Bronze fabricated it.
“A third artwork was installed in January 1965. Located in the lobby's north corridor ... relief depicts each of the characters in a font of printer's type.”
- 1986
Time Inc. sells its 45 percent stake in the tower to the Rockefeller Group for $118 million
In December 1986 Time Inc. sold the 45 percent ownership share it had held since the building was planned to the Rockefeller Group for $118 million. In the same deal it pushed its lease expiry from 1997 back to 2007, with the right to renew until 2017, which it used in 1999 when it occupied 80 percent of the tower. Time planned to put part of the proceeds toward stock buybacks and other purchases.
“Time Inc. sold its 45 percent ownership stake in December 1986 to the Rockefeller Group for $118 million.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2002
The city landmarks the ground-floor lobby, with its serpentine terrazzo floor and stainless-steel elevator core
On July 16, 2002, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the lobby an interior landmark after fourteen witnesses, including the owner, Rockefeller Group, and the lessee, Time Inc., spoke in favor and none opposed. It praised the plate glass and white marble walls, the elevator core wrapped in stainless steel, the gray and white terrazzo floor in a playful serpentine pattern, and abstract works by Fritz Glarner and Josef Albers.
- 2002
CNN opens a two-story television studio in a former bank branch at the base
In August 2001 CNN, then part of AOL Time Warner, and the Rockefeller Group agreed to turn a former Chase Manhattan Bank branch at the base of the tower into a two-story television studio. The studio opened in September 2002, and Production Design Group handled the scenery. It debuted while the lobby was undergoing a $40 million renovation by Swanke Hayden Connell Architects.
“CNN and the Rockefeller Group agreed to convert a former Chase Manhattan Bank branch at the base into a two-story CNN television studio. The CNN studio opened in September 2002…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2015
Time Inc. moves out and a $325 million renovation begins, with the cornerstone time capsule removed
Time Inc. moved out in 2015 for Brookfield Place in lower Manhattan, and Rockefeller Group announced a $325 million renovation designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. The work added a Sixth Avenue entrance, repaved the plaza and replaced the facade. Time Inc. also took out the time capsule laid with the cornerstone, which held magazines, photo books, a pencil and a microfilm on Rockefeller Center's history.
“Time Inc. removed a time capsule that had been embedded in the building when its cornerstone was laid.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2015
AMC places a Don Draper silhouette bench outside the building that plays Mad Men's ad agency
In AMC's Mad Men the tower stood in for the home of the fictional ad firm Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, later Sterling Cooper & Partners. In 2015 AMC unveiled a bench in front of the building holding a sculpture of the black silhouette of lead character Don Draper, as it appears in the show's title sequence. Part of the story in the 2013 movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty also takes place in the building.
“AMC, the network on which Mad Men airs, unveiled a bench in front of the building in 2015; it contains a sculpture of lead character Don Draper's black silhouette…”
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- 1271 Avenue of the AmericasWikipedia
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