The New York Times Building
620 8th Avenue | also 265 West 40th Street, 231 West 40th Street, 227 West 40th Street | Times Square | built 2003
Open on the map15 entries
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1981
State planners propose a garment merchandise mart for the site, but it is never built
In 1981 a New York State agency, the Urban Development Corporation, proposed redeveloping the area around West 42nd Street, including a mart for garment-trade showrooms along the Eighth Avenue blocks from 40th to 42nd Street. Kohn Pedersen Fox later designed a 20-story showroom building with a clock-topped arch across 41st Street. A weak market kept the mart from ever being completed, which left the southern half of the site open for a later project.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2000
The Times chooses Renzo Piano after Gehry and Childs withdraw from the design competition
In September 2000 four architects submitted designs for the newspaper's new tower: Renzo Piano, Norman Foster, Cesar Pelli, and the team of Frank Gehry and David Childs. Gehry and Childs withdrew because Gehry worried his design would be compromised by later revisions. The Times selected Piano's proposal that October, with Fox & Fowle as co-architect.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2001
Hatters, lace sellers and a sound school await condemnation on the block chosen for the Times tower
In 2001 the Eighth Avenue block between 40th and 41st Streets held Arnold Hatters, B & J Fabrics, which sold French hand-beaded lace for $600 a yard, and the SAE Institute audio school, with the Sussex House dormitory around the corner. State officials called the block blighted. At a September 24 hearing, owners complained that the Times would get an assembled 80,000-square-foot parcel for about $84.94 million, and said the threat of condemnation since 1981 had depressed their property values.
Source: The New York Times
- 2001
The Times announces its Eighth Avenue headquarters as the state moves to condemn the block
The New York Times Company publicly announced its plans on December 13, 2001, and that month the Empire State Development Corporation was authorized to condemn properties on the site. Landowners sued, but a state judge ruled against them in August 2002, and about 55 businesses were evicted over the following year. In February 2003 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their challenge.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2003
Five video shops on the Times site are displaced as vice on Eighth Avenue moves south
By April 2003, five adult video shops on the Eighth Avenue block between 40th and 41st Streets were being pushed out to clear room for the new Times headquarters. One had moved to West 40th Street and three planned moves to West 36th Street. The Fashion Center Business Improvement District counted nine such shops on Eighth Avenue between 34th and 40th Streets, up from two two years earlier, and its executive director said the trade had been pushed south.
Source: The New York Times
- 2003
The state readies the Eighth Avenue parcel for handover, setting up demolition of 11 buildings
In September 2003 the state's 42nd Street Development Project told the Times Company and Forest City Ratner it was ready to hand over the parcel between 40th and 41st Streets, clearing the way to demolish 11 buildings. The state had spent a year relocating about 55 businesses, among them trade schools, sex shops, fabric sellers and a hatter. The partners had put down a $20 million nonrefundable deposit and had to start building within a year.
Source: The New York Times
- 2006
A rod falls from the rising tower and dents the roof of a passing car
In March 2006, while the tower was still under construction, a rod fell from the building and dented the roof of a car passing below, slightly injuring the people inside. The steel superstructure was topped out that July, and by October the facade had been installed up to the 42nd floor.
“During construction, in March 2006, a rod fell from the tower and dented the roof of a passing car…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2007
Times critic Nicolai Ouroussoff reviews his own employer's new tower and finds the rods lifeless
As the building opened, Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff reviewed his own employer's new home, admitting his bias and saying he was enchanted. He described the old 43rd Street headquarters as charming but depressing to work in. He judged the ceramic-rod screen flat and lifeless against the skyline, noting that Renzo Piano had used a similar screen on his 1997 Debis Tower in Berlin.
Source: The New York Times
- 2007
The Times moves its newsroom into the new tower and the building officially opens
The newspaper shifted its publishing operations from West 43rd Street to Eighth Avenue on June 11, 2007, and the building officially opened on November 19. The tower was projected to cost more than $1 billion. The first office tenant was the law firm Seyfarth Shaw, which leased floors in May 2006, and Covington & Burling later took higher floors.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2007
Renzo Piano screens a glass tower with 186,000 ceramic rods and leaves the corner bracing exposed
Piano's cruciform tower has a glass curtain wall fronted by about 186,000 ceramic rods that the architects called baguettes. The notched corners leave the steel bracing in an X pattern exposed. The 110-foot Times logo on Eighth Avenue, designed by Michael Bierut of Pentagram, is made of 959 aluminum sleeves wrapped around the rods.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2008
Climber Alain Robert scales the facade, and the Times removes some ceramic rods
In mid-2008 three men separately climbed the ceramic rods. Professional climber Alain Robert went up the north face on June 5 to protest global warming, Rey Clarke climbed the west side that day, and a Connecticut man climbed on July 9 to protest Al-Qaeda. Workers then removed some rods, mainly on the north and south sides, and added glass panels to deter climbing.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2009
The Times sells its floors to W. P. Carey and leases them back, then buys them back in 2019
With the company facing financial shortfalls, the Times agreed to sell the floors it occupied to W. P. Carey for $225 million and lease them back for $24 million a year over ten years. The leaseback was finalized in March 2009. The Times announced in 2018 that it would repurchase the leasehold, and it exercised that option in late 2019 for $245 million.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2011
A juvenile red-tailed hawk crashes into the glass atrium and is rescued by a falconer
On a Thursday afternoon in January 2011, a juvenile red-tailed hawk crashed into the glass atrium, dropped to a fourth-floor landing, then fell to the courtyard four stories below. Crowds gathered at the newsroom windows while building workers hesitated to handle the bird's talons. A worker finally boxed it for the falconer Peter Richter, who took it to a rehabilitator in Massapequa. NYC Audubon's director said birds see the atrium's trees, land, and then cannot tell the glass is a barrier when they try to leave.
Source: cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com
- 2024
The Times announces that Moveable Type, its 560-screen lobby artwork, will come down
In June 2024 The Times reported that Moveable Type, the artwork in its lobby since 2007, would be taken down in mid-August. The piece by Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen hangs 560 small screens on wires and shows fragments of the paper's live digital report, with clicks and bells for sound. Only four screens had needed replacing since 2007, and the work was to be returned to its creators.
Source: The New York Times
- 2025
A credit downgrade shows strain on the Brookfield-owned office floors as tenants leave
Brookfield's office floors had their credit rating cut in February 2025 after several big tenants left. Brookfield had borrowed $900 million in mortgage loans that were due for repayment by December, and rents were not enough to cover them.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- The New York Times BuildingWikipedia
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