Lipstick Building

885 3rd Avenue | also 198 East 54th Street, 885 Third Avenue | East Midtown | built 1986

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Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1981

    January

    Gerald Hines buys the site for his first New York project

    Gerald D. Hines buys the site at 885 Third Avenue from Citicorp for $28 million in January 1981, the highest price yet paid for Midtown land. It is his first project in New York City, after 273 projects elsewhere in the United States. He hires architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee to design an elliptical office building for the site.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1983

    A holdout tenant paying $90.14 a month is bought out for nearly $1 million to clear the site

    Before the tower could rise, Sterling Equities and Hines had to clear 13 walk-up buildings on the site that they had bought in 1981. One tenant, Paul Brine, held three rent-regulated apartments around Manhattan and threatened in 1983 to appeal his eviction from a $90.14-a-month unit on East 53rd Street. Rather than face up to three years of litigation, Sterling paid him close to $1 million to leave.

    Source: Internet Archive

  3. 1985

    March 28

    Philip Johnson's firm prepares to leave the Seagram Building for the elliptical tower

    The New York Times reported in March 1985 that John Burgee Architects with Philip Johnson would leave the Seagram Building, where Johnson had kept offices since it opened in 1958, and move that November into the unfinished tower on Third Avenue. Johnson said the firm needed more space and that its rent had doubled. A Hines Interests executive called the architects' decision a strong endorsement of the project.

    Source: Internet Archive

  4. 1986

    Four marble elevators, each cab in a different stone, serve the new tower

    The building's four elevators were each paneled in a different marble. The New York Times noted in April 1986 that the cabs, designed by John Burgee Architects with Philip Johnson, came in brown tourmaline, red alicante, Spanish rose and green aosta. The paper linked the trend to a new process that produced stone slabs about a third thinner and lighter, which was making marble elevators popular.

    Source: Internet Archive

  5. 1986

    The elliptical Lipstick Building is completed on Third Avenue

    Hines breaks ground in May 1984 with no tenants signed, unlike his firm's usual approach, and the 34-story tower is completed in 1986. Its nearly elliptical form, with polygonal walls of over a hundred sides, is clad in red Swedish Imperial granite and stainless steel. The shape and color earn it the nickname the Lipstick Building. Architect John Burgee describes the design as "a memorable landmark along the blandness of Third Avenue."

    Source: Wikipedia

  6. 1986

    Bernard Madoff's firm leases three floors as an early tenant

    Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities becomes one of the Lipstick Building's early tenants, along with firms such as Telecom Plus and the ad agency Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopolus. Architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee also move their own firm's offices into the tower, which Hines officials regard as a strong endorsement.

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 2007

    July

    A consortium buys the tower for $648.5 million while SL Green buys most of the land beneath it

    In July 2007 a consortium called Metropolitan 885 Third Avenue LLC bought the tower for $648.5 million and finalized the purchase the next month. In the same financing package SL Green paid $317 million for the land underneath, which it acquired in part as a fee interest and in part as a leasehold, so the building and its site ended up with different owners. Metropolitan defaulted on its first mortgage in 2010 and filed for bankruptcy that November.

    “A consortium known as Metropolitan 885 Third Avenue LLC bought the building in July 2007 for $648.5 million…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 2008

    Madoff's firm, a tenant since 1986, folds after its $65 billion Ponzi scheme

    Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, which occupies three floors of the building, folds in 2008 after its chairman is found to have operated a $65 billion Ponzi scheme. The FBI takes over part of the firm's space during its fraud investigation, and brokers worry that the connection will drive tenants away. Rental income at the tower declines in the following years, partly because of the scandal and partly because of the 2008 financial crisis.

    Source: Wikipedia

  9. 2022

    September

    Memorial Sloan Kettering pays $300 million for about two-thirds of the building

    Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center bought about two-thirds of the tower from SL Green in September 2022 for $300 million, a block of roughly 415,000 to 435,000 square feet. Latham & Watkins, the main office tenant, had announced in 2018 that it would move to 1271 Avenue of the Americas and vacate most of the building's offices. A lobby renovation by MdeAS Architects was completed in 2024.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 43 buildings with stories in East Midtown