Former New York Times Building
229 West 43rd Street | also 218 West 44th Street, 216 West 44th Street, 220 West 44th Street | Times Square | built 1932
Open on the map15 entries
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1912
The Times pays Lee Shubert $300,000 for a West 43rd Street site, a record west of Broadway
The New York Times Company bought up two lots in 1912 on the north side of West 43rd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. One, measuring 100 by 100 feet, was bought from Lee Shubert for $300,000, a price described as a record for property west of Broadway in that district. The other, 43 by 100 feet, was leased from the Astor estate. The Times Annex went up on the combined site.
- 1913
The Times prints its first issue in its new Annex on West 43rd Street
In 1912 the Times bought two lots on the north side of West 43rd Street, including a 100-by-100-foot plot from Lee Shubert for $300,000, described as a record price west of Broadway. Mortimer J. Fox designed an eleven-story Annex echoing the paper's 1905 Times Tower. The first issue was printed there on March 3, 1913, and some 600 people worked in the building, making the Times one of the area's largest employers.
“The first issue was printed in the Annex on March 3, 1913.”
- 1913
A 400-foot conduit and pneumatic tube run under Seventh Avenue to the old Times Tower
Even after printing moved to the Annex, the Times kept its publication and subscription offices in the Times Tower across Seventh Avenue. A concrete conduit about 400 feet long ran beneath the avenue to link the two buildings, carrying steam and electric cables along with a pneumatic tube. The Annex also had a 25-foot arcade east of its entrance leading to Weber and Fields' Music Hall on West 44th Street.
“…connected to the Annex by means of a four hundred-foot long concrete conduit beneath Seventh Avenue, housing steam and electric cables, as well as a pneumatic tube…”
- 1924
Ludlow & Peabody double the plant and add a chateau-style tower with neon TIMES letters
The Times filed plans in January 1922 to double its printing capacity, and Ludlow & Peabody's 100-foot addition to the west was finished in October 1924. They matched its height and cornice to the Annex so that the two looked built together, then crowned both with a setback attic. A seven-story Chateauesque tower rose at the center, showing one-story neon letters spelling TIMES on four sides and a flagpole flying the paper's logo.
“On the four sides of the seventeenth story were one-story tall neon letters that spelled out "TIMES…”
- 1930
Albert Kahn's west wing goes up on the site of the Yandis Court Apartments
In August 1930 the Times filed plans to expand the Annex westward, onto the former site of the Yandis Court Apartments. Construction began on November 16, 1930, and the wing was officially finished on January 7, 1932. It cost more than $1 million, not counting equipment, and was meant to let nearly every department grow without rearranging the existing space.
- 1938
The Museum of the Printed Word opens inside the Times Annex
In 1938 an exhibit tracing the story of printing, the Museum of the Printed Word, opened inside the Times Annex. The building also held other public displays, including a show of employees' art and an annual flower show using staff members' plants. The museum was there for about four decades before it moved to the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1981.
“…the Museum of the Printed Word, an exhibit about the history of printing, opened inside the building in 1938…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1942
The Annex is renamed the New York Times Building, and the paper buys the 44th Street Theatre to expand
Because of its importance to the paper, the Annex took on the name New York Times Building in 1942. Under publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger the Times bought the 44th Street Theatre in 1943, and Shreve, Lamb & Harmon built an addition on its site, finished in 1947. Fifteen new presses in the basement raised capacity by half, and bedrooms on the fourteenth floor let executives stay overnight during emergencies.
- 1946
At the opening of a new entrance, no one can find a key to lock the Times's front door
In December 1946 a simple ceremony opened the Times's redesigned entrance, which was decorated with a bronze relief of the slogan "All the News That's Fit to Print", salvaged from the closed Brooklyn plant. Officials reportedly could not find a key to lock the original 1913 entrance. An old-timer recalled that the key had been thrown away when the Annex opened, because the paper supposedly would never close.
“…no key could be found to lock the original 1913 entrance…”
- 1950
WQXR moves into new studios on the ninth and tenth floors
The Times bought the radio station WQXR in 1944, and in 1950 the station moved into new studios on the building's ninth and tenth stories. A new auditorium was also built on the ninth story, designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, the same architects who had redesigned the main entrance in 1946.
- 1965
A journalism society names the building a Historic Site in Journalism
In 1965 the journalism society Sigma Delta Chi recognized the building as a Historic Site in Journalism, the twenty-first site it had named. Members put up a rectangular bronze plaque honoring Adolph Ochs between the west and center entrances. The plaque was still on the facade when the Landmarks Commission described the building in 2001.
- 1971
Editors in the Times building decide to keep publishing the Pentagon Papers after Mitchell's telegram
On the afternoon of June 14, 1971, a telegram from Attorney General John Mitchell reached the third-floor wire room, asking the Times to stop its Pentagon Papers series. Publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger was flying to London, so executives and editors, including managing editor A. M. Rosenthal and vice president James Goodale, argued in the publisher's eleventh-floor office. News assistant Robert J. Rosenthal, who was present, recalls that they chose to publish and that A. M. Rosenthal announced it in the newsroom. The reporters on the project had been kept out of sight at the Hilton hotel.
Source: revealnews.org
- 1985
The Times opposes landmark status because its presses are still running
The Landmarks Preservation Commission took up the building in 1985, but the Times objected to designation because its printing plant was still running. The newspaper wanted to move printing out of New York City, while about 2,000 business and news employees were to remain at 229 West 43rd Street. The building was designated only in 2001.
“The LPC considered the building for landmark status in 1985, but the Times opposed the effort because the printing plant was still in use.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1997
The presses on West 43rd Street stop, ending printing at the building
In 1997 the presses in the basement came to a halt and the remaining printing moved to a new plant on the Whitestone Expressway in College Point, Queens, designed by Polshek Partnership. The building continued to hold the newspaper's editorial and business offices. When the Landmarks Commission designated it in 2001, the Times was planning a new skyscraper on the east side of Eighth Avenue by Renzo Piano.
“In 1997 , the presses came to a halt and the balance of printing operations were moved to a new printing plant…”
- 2001
The Landmarks Commission designates the Times Annex a city landmark
On April 24, 2001, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the New York Times Building, then still the newspaper's home, covering the 1912-13 original and the 1922-24 and 1930-32 additions at 217-247 West 43rd Street. Speakers for designation at the March 27 hearing included the Landmarks Conservancy, the Municipal Art Society, the Historic Districts Council and a Times representative. An earlier hearing in November 1985 had produced no designation.
“Four witnesses, a representative of the New York Times and representatives of the Historic Districts Council, the Municipal Art Society, and the Landmarks Conservancy, spoke in support…”
- 2007
The Times moves its publishing operations to Eighth Avenue and the old building changes hands
On June 11, 2007, the Times moved its publishing operations from West 43rd Street to its new headquarters on Eighth Avenue, and its collection of 5 million print items went too. It had sold the old building in November 2004 for $175 million to a partnership led by Tishman Speyer. In April 2007 Africa Israel Investments, later AFI USA, bought it for $525 million, three times what Tishman Speyer had paid, and renamed it the Times Square Building.
“The Times shifted its publishing operations from 43rd Street to its new Eighth Avenue headquarters on June 11, 2007…”
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- 229 West 43rd StreetWikipedia
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