599 Lexington Avenue

Turtle Bay | built 1985

Open on the map7 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1984

    Mortimer Zuckerman's Boston Properties buys the site for its first New York tower

    Real estate developer Mortimer Zuckerman's Boston Properties pays $84 million for the site at Lexington Avenue and 53rd Street in 1984, in what becomes its first building in New York City. Architects Edward Larrabee Barnes and John M. Y. Lee design a 50-story office tower for the lot, next to the Citigroup Center, at a cost of about $300 million.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1985

    Mortimer Zuckerman picks Frank Stella to make a huge work for the 599 Lexington lobby

    While the tower is going up, developer Mortimer Zuckerman tells the New York Times that Frank Stella was the only artist strong enough to add to the building's monumental lobby. The planned painted-metal relief is to stand 34 feet high and 30 feet wide, behind a glass wall 50 by 70 feet in the five-story lobby facing the corner plaza. The Times compares its size and visibility to the Chagall murals at the Metropolitan Opera House.

    Source: The New York Times

  3. 1985

    Stella's lobby relief is cut from magnesium and aluminum in Bridgeport and designed to be assembled in the lobby

    The relief for 599 Lexington is being fabricated by Swan Color Graphics, a Bridgeport, Connecticut, shop, out of plates of magnesium and aluminum; its plan engineer calls the result Stella's sculpture work. The pieces are then dismantled and sent to the artist's New York studio for painting. Because the lobby entrance is only 9 1/2 by 6 feet, the cutout pieces are to be carried in one by one and erected inside, on a wall built to take a little more than two tons.

    Source: The New York Times

  4. 1986

    June 1

    Paul Goldberger calls the new 599 Lexington Avenue Edward Larrabee Barnes's best New York tower since 535 Madison

    In his Architecture View column, Paul Goldberger praises the sleek metal 47-story tower as a minimalist sculpture whose diagonal slices open views toward Citicorp Center and create a generous corner plaza. He writes that it lacks masonry, ornament and an elaborate top, yet succeeds, and he calls it Edward Larrabee Barnes's best New York tower since 535 Madison Avenue. He also notes that Boston Properties kept the architect and the basic scheme begun by the developer that had abandoned the project.

    Source: The New York Times

  5. 1986

    The tower opens without a lead tenant already signed

    Edward Larrabee Barnes and John M. Y. Lee's 653-foot, 50-story tower is completed in 1986 without an anchor tenant. Its lobby displays Frank Stella's abstract relief "Salto nel Mio Sacco." The property also holds an entrance to the Lexington Avenue/51st Street subway station, marked by a sloped glass canopy.

    Source: Wikipedia

  6. 2002

    The tower's major law-firm tenant, now A&O Shearman, adds six floors to its space

    In 2002 the law firm now called A&O Shearman, the biggest tenant at 599 Lexington Avenue, expanded its holdings in the tower by six floors. Other occupants listed for the building include Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, which came from 320 Park Avenue and fills the 17th floor and all of the 18th, and Cornerstone Research, which occupies the 41st floor and the entire 42nd through 44th.

    “A&O Shearman (the major tenant; expanded holdings by six floors in 2002)…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 2016

    FXFowle brightens the lobby in a renovation led by Barnes's protégé

    In 2016, FXFowle Architects remodels the lobby, hallways, and elevators of 599 Lexington Avenue to brighten the space and light Frank Stella's lobby artwork better. The project's lead architect, Bruce Fowle, was a protégé of Edward Larrabee Barnes, the tower's original designer. Pentagram assists with the graphics for the building's wayfinding.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 32 buildings with stories in Turtle Bay