General Motors Building
767 5th Avenue | also 610 Madison Avenue, 10 East 59th Street, 624 Madison Avenue | Midtown | built 1968
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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.
- 1964
General Motors' tower plan for the Savoy-Plaza site sets off protests over the hotel's demolition
Media reported in August 1964 that the Savoy-Plaza Hotel, which had replaced the older Savoy in 1927, would be torn down for a tower anchored by General Motors. Public outcry followed, and the preservation group Save Our Landmarks warned it would urge a boycott of the automaker's products. The hotel was nonetheless shut in stages and demolished. The loss spurred efforts to protect nearby hotels, and the city rezoned three blocks around Grand Army Plaza in 1968.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1968
GM opens its ground-floor showroom in the new tower, drawing ten thousand visitors on day one
General Motors opened the building and its showroom on September 26, 1968, with its 1969 models on display, and ten thousand people came the first day. Edward Durell Stone and Emery Roth & Sons designed the 50-story marble-and-glass tower. GM's 3,027 employees took about half the space, while cosmetics firms such as Estee Lauder and Revlon rented much of the rest, earning it the nickname General Odors Building.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1969
A two-alarm fire sends workers fleeing the lower floors of the new General Motors Building
On October 20, 1969, a two-alarm fire started at the new General Motors Building on Fifth Avenue, and workers on the first and second stories had to flee. The New York Times covered it the next day in a story by Richard Phalon, under a headline saying the fire forced some employees to leave the building.
Source: Internet Archive
- 1969
Filmmakers throw eggs at the facade to make it dirty again during the window-washers' strike
Soon after the building opened, its window-washing union struck for more than a month, and the facade grew dirty. The building appeared as a filming location in the 1969 movie Cactus Flower. Per a deal with the union, the film crew pelted the facade with eggs once shooting ended, to bring back the dirt. Later that year a fire nearly destroyed a Longchamps space in the plaza.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1986
FAO Schwarz moves its flagship toy store into the ground-floor retail space
In 1986 FAO Schwarz relocated its flagship toy store to the building's ground-floor retail space. The toy store stayed there until 2015, after which the space was subleased to Under Armour for a flagship store that Under Armour later dropped. GM had by then cut back, and moved the last of its executives out by 2012.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1998
Conseco and Donald Trump buy the tower for $878 million and put his name on the piers
Investment firm Conseco and developer Donald Trump bought the building in 1998 for $878 million, with a $700 million loan from Lehman Brothers. Trump had his name fixed in four-foot gold letters to the piers facing Fifth and Madison Avenues, and hired Der Scutt to redo the lobby. The old showroom became a studio for CBS's The Early Show, and the sunken plaza was brought up to street level.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1999
Trump renames the tower and begins roofing over its sunken courtyard
By mid-1999, workers were demolishing the edges of the building's sunken courtyard, which was to be roofed over to make a plaza just above street level. Donald Trump and Conseco, the owners, had bought the tower the year before, and Trump had already renamed the 31-year-old building the General Motors Building at Trump International Plaza. A new CBS morning show with Bryant Gumbel, due to start in November, was to broadcast from a studio at the north end of the plaza, where the GM showroom had stood.
Source: Internet Archive
- 2002
Trump sues his partner Conseco for $1 billion over the GM Building
Donald Trump and Conseco's Stephen Hilbert bought the tower together in 1998, but after Hilbert was ousted from the company in 2000 its new management wanted cash. On February 7, 2002, Trump sued Conseco for $1 billion, claiming it had reneged on a sale contract once it decided the building was worth more after the World Trade Center attack. Conseco hit back, and one executive floated stripping Trump's gold lettering from the facade and auctioning it on eBay.
Source: Internet Archive
- 2003
Harry Macklowe signs a $1.4 billion contract, a record price for a US skyscraper
On the night of August 28, 2003, developer Harry Macklowe signed a contract to buy the 50-story tower for $1.4 billion, about $800 a square foot, a record for any skyscraper sold in the country. Earlier records included the $1.05 billion Boston Properties paid for Citigroup's headquarters at 399 Park Avenue the year before. Macklowe had outmaneuvered more than two dozen rival bidders, and the gold TRUMP letters of a former owner had already been stripped from the marble.
Source: Internet Archive
- 2006
Apple Fifth Avenue opens behind a 32-foot glass cube in the rebuilt plaza
In 2003 Harry Macklowe bought the building for $1.4 billion, then the highest price paid for a North American office building. He spent $150 million on renovations that created the Apple Fifth Avenue store, which opened in 2006. Its entrance is a 32-foot glass cube in the plaza, designed by Apple and Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, with a glass elevator and spiral staircase descending into the store.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2015
F.A.O. Schwarz will close its Fifth Avenue flagship on July 15, reports say
In May 2015, F.A.O. Schwarz was reported to be closing its flagship in the General Motors Building on July 15, pushed out by rising rents and the turn toward ultraluxury shops. The store, a character in the 1988 Tom Hanks film Big, had become the chain's sole remaining location; it once ran 40 around the country. Its owner, Toys R Us, said it remained committed to the brand, and the store had agreed with Boston Properties, the building's owner, to leave before its lease ran out in 2017.
Source: Internet Archive
Further reading
- General Motors Building (Manhattan)Wikipedia
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