500 Fifth Avenue
500 5th Avenue | also 1 West 42nd Street | Midtown | built 1931
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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.
- 1903
Walter Salmon leases the corner and turns the Hotel Bristol into the Bristol Building
In 1903 the young real estate man Walter J. Salomon, who later changed his name to Salmon, leased the adjoining L-shaped lot together with the corner at the northwest intersection of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. The corner held the eight-story Hotel Bristol, an earlier building on the site of 500 Fifth Avenue, which he turned into a mix of shops and offices called the Bristol Building. The property became the core of his plan to rebuild the whole block front.
- 1928
New York's top court rules that Salmon owed his partner a say in the corner's redevelopment
In 1902 Salmon took a 20-year lease on the Hotel Bristol, an earlier building on the lot where 500 Fifth Avenue now stands, and raised money for it from an investor, Morton Meinhard. When the landlord offered a new lease to rebuild the corner, Salmon signed it alone. On December 31, 1928, the New York Court of Appeals, in an opinion by Benjamin Cardozo, held that Salmon had breached his duty to tell Meinhard. The ruling became a widely cited case on partners' loyalty.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1930
The steel frame of 500 Fifth Avenue rises in four months
Steel erection began at the end of March 1930 and was done in about four months. Steel came to the site and derricks lifted it to the 36th floor, where it was assembled and sent on to the other floors by a relay derrick. At the peak of the project, nearly 2,200 workers were employed.
- 1930
A broker inspecting office space in the unfinished tower falls to his death
On November 20, 1930, the real estate operator Reginald W. Murray left his office carrying blueprints for a client who wanted space in the nearly finished tower. About an hour later his body landed on the iron grill over the skylight of the Columbia University Club. The Times reported the belief that he leaned out too far while checking window lighting on the 24th floor.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1931
The advertising agency N. W. Ayer opens a radio studio and screening theater on its floors
In August 1931 the advertising agency N. W. Ayer & Son took the 25th through 27th floors. The space included a radio station on the 25th floor, wired to several conference rooms so a client could hear a program as it would sound on the air. A theater on the same floor let advertisers watch the films the agency made for them.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1931
Walter Salmon opens his Art Deco tower on the old Hotel Bristol site
Developer Walter J. Salmon Sr. opened the 58-story tower, designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, after demolishing the Hotel Bristol on the site in December 1929. Steel topped out in July 1930, briefly making it the tallest building on Fifth Avenue until the Empire State Building, going up at the same time nearby, surpassed it.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1932
The Western Universities Club fits out the four top floors as a clubhouse
By October 1932 the Western Universities Club had fitted out the building's top four floors as its clubhouse. An Iowa newspaper explained that it gave newcomers a place to meet old friends from the West now living in the East. In 1976 an architect with offices on the top floor guessed that his space had once been a restaurant, though it had been the club's rooms.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1934
Thousands protest outside the Austrian consulate's offices
About 4,000 demonstrators gathered outside 500 Fifth Avenue to protest the Austro-Fascist regime, whose consulate occupied the 31st floor. The building's history of political and labor unrest continued the following year when elevator operators struck, affecting some 3,500 workers across the tower's tenant offices.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1980
A bomb explodes on the 30th floor
A bomb detonated on the 30th floor of 500 Fifth Avenue in an office belonging to a Yugoslav bank, an attack attributed to Croatian nationalists. No one was injured in the blast. The building's facade, restored in the 1990s, was designated a New York City landmark in 2010.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2007
Nat Sherman closes its corner cigar shop after more than 75 years
The cigar seller Nat Sherman closed its doors on June 15, 2007, after more than three-quarters of a century in the corner space. Its chief executive said the lease had expired and that building management made the firm feel unwanted. Customers had included Joe Montana, Natalie Cole, Harry Connick Jr., Rudolph Giuliani and Joe Torre, and the store relocated to 12 East 42nd Street, on the opposite diagonal corner of the intersection.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- 500 Fifth AvenueWikipedia
- Shreve, Lamb & Harmon's 1931 500 Fifth AvenueDaytonian in Manhattan
- SALMON TOWERForgotten New York
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