Landmarks  accepted  Vornado’s plans after  multiple revisions. On April 19, 2011, Landmarks approved Vornado Realty Trust’s revised proposal to renovate portions of the Manufacturers Trust Company Building at 510 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Landmarks in 1997 designated the modernist, glass-walled building as an individual City landmark. In February 2011 Landmarks designated the building’s first two floors as an interior landmark. 8 CityLand 28 (March 15, 2011).

Shortly after the interior designation, Vornado presented a plan to convert and renovate the building’s interior to accommodate two commercial tenants. Landmarks objected to Vornado’s plans to reconfigure the building’s escalators, create new entrances along Fifth Avenue, and demolish portions of the iconic bank vault. 8 CityLand 47 (April 15, 2011).

Skidmore, Owings  & Merrill architect Frank Mahan presented a revised plan on April 12. Mahan explained that the escalators would still be moved from their original central location, but would retain their original parallel configuration. Two of the bank vault’s walls would still be demolished, but a black granite strip along the floor would demarcate the vault’s original foot-print. The proposed entrances along Fifth Avenue were altered to increase their transparency. (read more…)

First- and second-floor interiors of four-story Manufacturers Trust Company Building designated. On February 15, 2011, Landmarks designated, as an interior landmark, the first two floors of the Manufacturers Trust Company Building at 510 Fifth Avenue in Midtown, Manhattan. Landmarks designated the former bank building’s fourstory glass and aluminum exterior as an individual City landmark in 1997. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designed the Modernist structure, which opened as a bank in 1954, under the direction of partner Gordon Bunshaft, who also designed the landmarked Lever House. The firm did not have an interior design division at the time so outside consultant Eleanor H. Le Maire was largely responsible for the building’s interior. Landmarks’ staff described the building as “arguably Manhattan’s single most transparent structure,” revealing an open, minimalist interior with a luminous ceiling, white marble piers, and freestanding escalators.

The interior designation includes the building’s former lobby and banking room, the escalators, and the ground floor vault door. The mezzanine is recessed from the street, giving it a floating appearance. The circular stainless steel vault door, in contrast with most banks, was in plain view of customers and passers-by along Fifth Avenue. The industrial designer Harry Dreyfus collaborated with the Mosler Safe Company to design the 30-ton vault. A 70-foot steel wall installation by sculptor Harry Bertoia on the second floor was removed by the building’s former tenant, J.P. Morgan Chase. (read more…)