Morgan Stanley Building

1585 Broadway | Times Square | built 1987

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Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1919

    Leighton's Haberdashers opens in the Strand Theater building on Broadway

    A four-story neo-classical building on this site held the Strand Theater, later the RKO Warner Twin, and from 1919 the clothing store Leighton's Haberdashers and Clothiers. Its customers included boxers, promoters and high-rollers who lived on the edge of fashion and the law. Over the store, the Strand Roof offered dining and dancing under the stars, and music publishers filled the offices.

    Source: The New York Times

  2. 1986

    December

    Leighton's Haberdashers closes and the Strand Theatre site is cleared for a Times Square tower

    David and Jean Solomon bought two Broadway properties in 1986, the Strand Theatre movie house and Leighton's Haberdashers and Clothiers. Leighton's had operated on Broadway for 67 years, and it closed in December to make way for a planned 40-story tower. The Solomons also purchased unused air rights from the Shubert Organization's Barrymore Theatre next door to reach 1.2 million square feet.

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1990

    Gwathmey Siegel's first high-rise opens with ticker boards, world-time signs and a glass roof

    Charles Gwathmey's firm and Emery Roth & Sons designed a 42-story tower whose base steps back and carries signs required by city rules, including three 140-foot ticker boards and curved corner signs showing the time in cities around the world. The glass tower tops out in a pitched roof that Paul Goldberger described as part gabled roof and part truncated pyramid.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1990

    The $300 million tower is finished in a weak market with only one tenant

    The building was completed for $300 million just as the early-1990s recession began. The law firm Proskauer Rose, which took eleven floors, was the only tenant. The Solomons had built the tower on speculation, without a committed tenant, and began missing loan payments in September 1990. By early 1991 Consolidated Edison had shut off the building's heat.

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 1991

    December 29

    Paul Goldberger names 1585 Broadway the year's "best nearly empty building"

    In his year-end roundup of 1991, the Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger gave the tower his mock award for Best Nearly Empty Building of the Year. He praised Charles Gwathmey and Robert Siegel's sleek metal skyscraper for an exceptionally elegant lobby and noted that it had so far just one major tenant.

    Source: The New York Times

  6. 1991

    December

    Solomon Equities files for Chapter 11 protection on the tower

    At the end of December 1991 the developer filed for Chapter 11, with $231 million in assets against $482 million in debt and monthly losses of $1.9 million. In three years the building had signed no new tenants, and Proskauer Rose had never paid rent, citing unfinished work. The lenders' disagreements then turned away several prospective tenants.

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 1993

    August

    Morgan Stanley buys the building for $176 million

    Morgan Stanley outbid the other bidders and bought the tower from its lenders for $176 million, about half what a new building would have cost. It had negotiated for space there during development but backed away over the signage. Commentators saw the purchase as a vote of confidence that the financial industry was staying in New York and spreading beyond Wall Street.

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 1995

    Gwathmey Siegel renovates the building for Morgan Stanley's trading operations

    Morgan Stanley began moving in from 1251 Avenue of the Americas in mid-1995. The original architect rebuilt the interior for the firm, adding 2,000 trading desks across four floors, a 500-seat basement dining room and a 45,000-square-foot executive suite on the 40th and 41st floors. Exterior signs, now required because the building was over half occupied, were installed.

    Source: Wikipedia

  9. 2000

    Proskauer Rose remodels its floors after years as the building's lonely only tenant

    Proskauer Rose moved into 11 floors of the tower in 1990 and was still its only tenant five years later. Its chairman, Alan Jaffe, remembered the early years as very lonely. The firm had sued the developers and lenders over unfinished paving, an incomplete facade and elevators needing repair, and withheld rent for about six months. In 2000 it remodeled its 19th floor, which held its law library, into seven conference rooms and 49 offices.

    Source: The New York Times

  10. 2001

    The lobby closes to the public after the September 11 attacks

    After the September 11 attacks, Morgan Stanley spread employees out of its Times Square campus so that fewer of them were concentrated in one small area. It also closed the building's lobby to the public for security reasons. The lobby is a privately owned public space that is legally required to remain open.

    “1585 Broadway's lobby was also closed to the public for security reasons, despite being a privately owned public space that legally had to remain open.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  11. 2004

    Morgan Stanley rings its headquarters with 41 concrete planters

    In 2004 Morgan Stanley surrounded the building with 41 dark gray concrete planter tubs, each about eight feet long, plus 16 cylindrical planters. At some points the tubs stood barely a foot apart, turning about 700 feet of sidewalk into a pen. When a Times photographer shot the barriers from a public sidewalk, a security guard tried to stop him. The developer had once pictured the area as a tasteful oasis.

    Source: The New York Times

  12. 2005

    September

    The Morgan Stanley Building agrees to dim its lights for migrating birds

    In September 2005 the Morgan Stanley Building was among the high-profile towers that signed on to a city and Audubon Society request to dim or switch off nonessential lights at midnight. The Chrysler Building and Rockefeller Center joined the effort. The voluntary policy covers the peak fall and spring migration seasons and was described as the first citywide effort of its kind.

    Source: The New York Times

Further reading

Nearby

All 91 buildings with stories in Times Square