Fred F. French Building
551 5th Avenue | also 547 5th Avenue | Midtown | built 1927
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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.
- 1925
Fred French buys the Fifth Avenue corner where he once worked as a timekeeper, razing a church
By March 1925 Fred F. French had bought the northeast corner of 45th Street and Fifth Avenue, where an office building, four houses and the Church of the Heavenly Rest all came down for his headquarters. The spot meant something to him: one of his first jobs was as a near-destitute timekeeper at the Home Club next door. At $250 to $285 a square foot, the 19,000-square-foot site was a bargain, and French Company stockholders congratulated themselves on a shrewd purchase.
- 1926
Construction of the Fred F. French Building begins, and the steel tops out within four months
Work started on May 22, 1926. Sloan & Robertson had won a variance to build 38 stories and about 417 feet, up from the 31 stories first planned, which made it the second tallest building in the area behind the Harriman Building. The steel frame was topped out within four months, but a delay of seven months for unknown reasons pushed the opening to October 1927.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1927
The French building is the first commercial use of the French Plan, which passes land to investors at cost
Fred French's building-finance scheme, the French Plan, had until then been used only for residential properties. The Landmarks Preservation Commission says the Fifth Avenue headquarters appears to be its first commercial use. Under the plan, one French company acquired the site and sold stock, keeping half the stock for underwriting and promotion, while another firm designed and built the tower. When it was finished, a management company took it over.
“The Fred F. French Building on Fifth Avenue appears to have been the first commercial application of the French Plan.”
- 1927
The Fred F. French Building opens as an Art Deco headquarters tower
Fred F. French commissioned the 38-story tower as a headquarters for his development company, after seven months of delay, and it opened on October 24, 1927. H. Douglas Ives and the firm Sloan & Robertson designed it in an Art Deco style with Middle Eastern influences. Near the top, faience sunbursts are flanked by winged griffons, and mosaics of Mercury appear on the narrower sides.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1928
Generoso Pope runs his Colonial Sand Company from the 31st floor and buys an Italian-language daily
Colonial Sand Company, an early tenant on the 31st floor, was headed by Generoso Pope. In late September 1928 the Times reported Pope's purchase of Il Progresso Italo-Americano, billed as the country's oldest and biggest Italian-language daily. He announced that the paper's policies and staff would stay the same. In 1930 the Italian government honored him with the rank of Grande Ufficiale of the Crown of Italy.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1928
The Guggenheim Foundation moves into the Fred F. French Building
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and a firm called the American Broadcasting Company were among the tenants that signed leases in 1928, the year after the tower opened. Other early occupants included brokers, a maker of pressure gauges, and Generoso Pope's Colonial Sand Company on the 31st floor.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1932
A detective hides in Generoso Pope's office and confronts two men who came for money
After Pope told authorities in spring 1932 that racketeers were sending him threatening letters, Eugene Canevari, a detective, was given the job of protecting him. On May 21 a caller demanded $1,000, and Pope's secretary, Salvatore Pino, told him to come to the office. Nathan Robinson and Michael Comparetto arrived and were shown into Pope's office, where the detective was hiding. The pair turned out to be a chauffeur and a salesman, not gangsters.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1933
Anti-Nazi relief committees work from offices in the French Building
In 1933 the American Committee Against Fascist Oppression in Germany kept its offices at 551 Fifth Avenue. When the exiled German economist Alfons Goldschmidt arrived in the United States that August, the Daily Worker reported that the committee would sponsor his lecture tour. A similar group, the American Committee for the Relief of Victimized German Children, worked from the building that year too.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1986
The city designates the building and its lobby interior landmarks
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building and its lobby city landmarks on March 18, 1986. The lobby has a polychrome vaulted ceiling and gilt-bronze doors. A full restoration in the 1990s re-gilded the lobby and repainted its ceiling, and the tower joined the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1990
A two-year restoration of the French Building brings back its colored terra-cotta
In 1990 a two-year restoration began, supervised by Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates. Senior architect Diane Kaese told the Times writer Christopher Gray that the panels were among the largest pieces of terra cotta she had ever seen. Gray noted that from a distance they read as small bursts of color, but up close they show plum, orange, yellow and gold glazes alongside a tropical green.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- Fred F. French BuildingWikipedia
- The 1927 Fred F. French Building - 551 Fifth AvenueDaytonian in Manhattan
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