1600 Broadway (Studebaker Building) - by Einhorn Yaffee Prescott with SLCE Architects

[DougGold]

Change, as It Does, Returns to Times Square
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: November 8, 2004: NYTIMES.com



The old Studebaker Building, which rose at the dawn of the last century over Long Acre Square (better known as Times Square), is about to come down. An apartment building will probably take its place.

Built in 1902 as a showroom for Studebaker Brothers vehicles - luxurious horse-drawn carriages like the Grand Victorias, dashing Spider Phaetons, smart single-seat traps and, for the truly adventurous, those self-propelled devices called automobiles - the once elegant 10-story building at 1600 Broadway, also facing 48th Street and Seventh Avenue, served over the years as the backdrop for countless postcards and snapshots of the Great White Way.

Its rooftop has been a pedestal for enormous signs advertising Maxwell House, Chevrolet, Braniff and Sony. Long after the Studebaker roadsters and coupes moved out, its ground floor was home to the Ripley Believe It or Not! Odditorium ("Curioddities From 200 Countries"), Howard Clothes and Tony Roma's A Place for Ribs.

Columbia Pictures may be said to have been born there, since it was in an office at 1600 Broadway that Harry Cohn, Joseph Brandt and Jack Cohn formed the C.B.C. Film Sales Company in 1920. Four years later, tired of the nickname "Corned Beef and Cabbage," they renamed the company Columbia. The building also housed the National Screen Service Corporation, suppliers of movie posters and other promotional materials.

In other words, 1600 Broadway was one of New York's most familiar unknown buildings.

As recently as the 1980's, its architectural integrity was intact and it still looked much the way it did when Long Acre Square - like the London street, Long Acre - was the heart of the harness and carriage trade.

But in the 1990's, the building fell under the shadow of the 26-story Renaissance New York Hotel Times Square, immediately to the south. Its deep cornice was stripped off and V-shaped sign boards sprouted from its upper corners. Finally, much of its facade was wrapped in a four-story vinyl billboard for Absolut vanilla vodka.

Now there is another addition: demolition scaffolding.

Sherwood Equities, the owner of the property and the developer of the Renaissance hotel, has applied to the city's Buildings Department to construct a 25-story, 136-unit apartment tower at 1600 Broadway. It would be designed by Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Achitecture & Engineering, working with Schuman Lichtenstein Claman Efron. It would rise 290 feet, almost three times as high as the Studebaker Building, which is not a landmark.

Jeffrey Katz, the chief executive of Sherwood, said that he had seriously explored renovating the 102-year-old structure but that doing so would not be feasible.

"It's drastically out of place at this time," Mr. Katz said. "It wants now to become something else."

Indeed, the history of the building itself is one of constant change.

Designed by James Brown Lord, the architect of the Appellate Division courthouse on Madison Square, the Studebaker Building was notable for its broadly arched ninth-floor windows framed by ornamental stonework medallions. Its corners were slightly cut away, or chamfered.

Studebaker Brothers had been at Broadway and Prince Street, and its emphasis soon shifted from horse-drawn carriages to motor cars.

"No other concern in the world manufactures and markets as great a range of self-propelled vehicles," Studebaker boasted in a 1909 advertisement, which invited readers to its "mammoth emporium" on 48th Street. "You should seek the Studebaker headquarters as a haven of refuge from the silvery tongued salesmen who, not knowing themselves, blindly essay to lead the blind."

Only a year later, Studebaker was on the move again, as the center of gravity of Automobile Row shifted northward along Broadway. By the 1930's, the clothier Joseph Hilton & Sons had an outpost at 1600 Broadway, where it sold $22.50 worsted suits.

The base of the building was remodeled in 1939 for the Odditorium, exhibiting the curios collected by Robert Ripley in his travels around the world. "In addition to the inanimate objects," The New York Times reported, "there also will be presented daily performances in which individuals of varied talents will take part."

The Odditorium filed for bankruptcy within a year, after which Howard Clothes moved in, offering $73.95 Dacron-worsted men's suits in the late 1960's.

Atop the building was a commanding sign position, especially in the days when the block between 47th and 48th Streets was occupied by low buildings. Sony had the last spectacular sign on the rooftop, which Mr. Katz, the landlord, said was designed personally by Sony's co-founder, Akio Morita.

By agreement with Sherwood, the horizontal crossbar of the Sony sign went dark when the Renaissance hotel grew high enough to obscure it. In recent years, Sherwood has installed smaller vinyl signs on the rooftop, now for Amstel and Heineken.

Sherwood purchased the building in 1986 from the Robbins family, which controlled National Screen Service. "We took it over it at a low point, when Times Square was the old Times Square," Mr. Katz said. "When we bought it, we knew we wouldn't develop it for a long time."

But that time has come. Because Times Square has changed again.

[Derek2k3]

Kind of sad this building is being torn down to probably be replaced by pure luxury crap.

[Gulcrapek]

EYPA is a pretty good firm. Don't despair so fast.

[Derek2k3]

True, but It's SLCE that has me down. :x

[Gulcrapek]

When SLCE does collaborations like this, it's usually form and interior work they do. Like the Friars Tower.

[NoyokA]

Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Achitecture & Engineering

Spelling mistake.

[Derek2k3]

http://www.cornershots.com/archives/000498.html

Great picture of the soon gone Studebaker Building from cornershots.
The crap that will replace it will be 25 stories and 290 ft according to DOB.

[kliq6]

they should make this a mixed-use hotel/office/apartment building, being the location it is in

[alex ballard]

I hope they'll push the height of the replacement. Personally, the building is nice, but I've seen better. I mean, look what replaced the Singer building.

[NYatKNIGHT]

Too bad. There should be a 1000 footer somewhere on Times Square.

[Kolbster]

Yea being that it is the center of the city an all
(arguably the center)

[BrooklynRider]

I think we have two threads going on this, one erroneously calling it 50th & Broadway. This building is demolished. Carting away the last of the debris should be done this week.

[Edward]

Originally Posted by BrooklynRider

I think we have two threads going on this, one erroneously calling it 50th & Broadway.

The other thread is not a duplicate, it is about a different building.

[TLOZ Link5]

Another piece of New York history vanishes. Where was the Landmarks Commission on this?

[alex ballard]

Originally Posted by TLOZ Link5

Another piece of New York history vanishes. Where was the Landmarks Commission on this?

NO NO NO! Brooklyn Heights and SoHo is one thing, but if we start making them a force, you'll have NIMBY's beyond anything imagineable today. They'll landmark every single damn empty lot and burned out tenement in the city. I mean, those types sole priority is to ban ALL further construction within the city.

I may be exaggarting, but it consists mostly of UESers that even are blocking ESA and SAS.