Bloomberg Tower (a.k.a. One Beacon Court) - 731 Lexington Ave

[onecentralpark]

I'm still excited about the crown. Definitely a beacon.

http://nyc5boros.com/pics/gates/nyc_gates034_bloomberg.jpg

[alonzo-ny]

If possible, i'd love a pic with bloomberg, citicorp crysler and esb at night if anyone can!

[TonyO]

Newsday

Where the sky is no limit
Rafael Pelli's new East Side tower features a piazza that's wondrous from the bottom up

BY JUSTIN DAVIDSON
STAFF WRITER

March 23, 2005

If you've been driving into Manhattan over the Queensborough Bridge in recent weeks, you might have noticed the scaffolding peeling away from a pale, silvery new tower with a gentle twilight halo.

That's 731 Lexington Ave., aka the Bloomberg Tower, a building with a demure skyline presence that grows funkier and more assertive as it moves down. This is a tower with its soul in the street.

Its heart is a cobbled oval that links 58th and 59th streets, a private driveway disguised as a public piazza called Beacon Court. If it were truly open - if security guards did not track your steps through the premises or prohibit snapshots - it would be a marvelous civic gift.

The East Side has so few pauses in its hectic grid that the ellipse could become a beloved little enclave, a meeting place just off the frenetic bustle of Lex.

Aspiring to greatness

The chief architect, Rafael Pelli, son and associate of Cesar Pelli, began his career working for Hugh Hardy on the fantastically successful refurbishment of the open-air parlor called Bryant Park.

With the Bloomberg Tower's plaza, he aspired to make another great New York enclosure, akin to Grand Central Station, the reading room of the New York Public Library, the skating rink at Rockefeller Center or the World Financial Center Winter Garden, which his father designed.

Whether he succeeded will depend on how animated the plaza becomes - which will in turn depend on the quality of the restaurant that moves into the eastern curve - but already it is a special space.

Up, up and away

Like the library's reading room, where pink-tinged clouds dapple painted blue heavens on the ceiling, Beacon Court frames the sky.

The glass walls sweeping around the perimeter tilt slightly inward, drawing the eye into a rising spiral that goes twisting out of the urban canyon. Anyone can furnish a view from the 50th floor; Pelli has designed one from the sidewalk, looking up.

He has also designed a new street theater. The oval is roughly the size and shape of an 18th-century opera house; the 58th Street entrance faces a narrower proscenium opening, capped by a stainless-steel arch.

The spectators in the galleries all work for Bloomberg LP, whose offices wrap like galleries around the opening. Their frenzied activity and a blaring news crawl, visible from the street, provide additional drama under glass.

A kinetic, baroque sensibility infuses this curvaceous spot. It's startling not just because Manhattan is so rectilinear, but because it offsets the tower's austere form.

The link is in the surface - not the plain, flat skin of tinted glass that sheathes so many midtown offices, but a textured, twinkling hide.

The glass is ribbed and translucent in some places, smooth and clear in others. Each pane's exact degree of reflectivity is calibrated, depending on what takes place behind it.

An utterly transparent band of windows at torso height runs around the restaurant, so diners inside having an expensive good time can incite envy in those outside without reservations.

The story of the stories

Horizontal tubes of stainless steel hover nearly 2 feet from the sides of the court like rungs of a great curved ladder.

(Security guards are primed to tackle anyone who tries to climb them.) The tubes and the slender struts that hold them in place cast complicated shadows or reflections onto the faceted glass walls, so the whole surface dances in the changing light.

The tower itself has a more regular rhythm, the beat of each story accented by a floor-level white metal band that sticks out all the way around.

At the 30th floor, where the tower turns residential and the ceiling heights shrink, the bands come closer together, as if the drummer had picked up the pace, accelerating into the diffuse white glow of the crown.

Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc.

Slideshow at link:
http://www.nynewsday.com/business/realestate/ny-etlede4186105mar23,0,785472.story?coll=nyc-swapbox1

[RandySavage]

Thanks for the link. The building is a beautiful addition to the city. (just wish they'd remove the antennae).

[Stern]

Im not a big fan of the courtyard, at all! The fact that it looks so incredibly cool makes it all the more disappointing, here we are in the middle of Manhattan, and a place that can act as refuge, and they decide to do what, pave a road around it. This really annoys me, especially in a time when NYC is moving away from the automobile they put all negatives associated with cars, the danger, noise, and pollution as the heart of the development. Imagine for a second, the courtyard exactly as it is but with 10 full-size red-woods surrounded by the concrete jungle and the beautiful curve of glass surrounding it. Imagine stepping away from all the roads, there’s no lack of them in Manhattan, into maybe a pine sanctuary with little needles on the ground. Here was an opportunity to create something along the lines of the Ford Foundation which is one of the greatest man-made indoor spaces ever created, here too was the budget, the opportunity, and they even built it out, but rather then creating something special and unique to the city they decided to do something suburban in nature and put a road there, and that I’ll never understand. Im sorry for my rambling but it almost makes me hate which is otherwise a beautiful addition to the city.

A big thumbs down.

[Gulcrapek]

A lot of rich folk think they're ahove public transit, hence the need for their driveway/pickup.

[antinimby]

Relax.
It looks like there are barriers erected at the entrance so the courtyard is closed to autos.
BTW, are those photos real?
They look like renderings.
Is that a water fountain in the middle?
It looks really good.
I have to go there to check it out myself (hope security don't harrass me).

[ZippyTheChimp]

The last time I was there, it appeared that the courtyard was to be a driveway. The barriers may be retractable bollards for security.

If true, I agree this is a poor and unnecessary use of the courtyard. No parking drop-off zones could have been set up on both side streets.

[Stern]

A lot of rich folk think they're ahove public transit, hence the need for their driveway/pickup.

That’s it, the driveway is not necessary, luxury high rises throughout the city manage without a drive way. Everyone even rich people can take advantage of and enjoy green in Manhattan.

I can’t expect Cesar Pelli to think outside the box and offer residents and the city something truly exceptional. At least the NYTIMES Building has an innovative architect and understands that not only does greenery enhance a working and living environment but it also enhances the buildings design:

http://194.185.232.3/works/064/pictures/35big.jpg

http://194.185.232.3/works/064/pictures/18big.jpg

Relax.
It looks like there are barriers erected at the entrance so the courtyard is closed to autos.
BTW, are those photos real?
They look like renderings.
Is that a water fountain in the middle?
It looks really good.
I have to go there to check it out myself (hope security don't harrass me).

The courtyard is not yet open but when it will it will not be open to foot-traffic rather for cabs and limos. There will be no fountain, the otherwise unique and valuable space will only be used as a drive.

[BrooklynRider]

I just don't understand how the Port Authority can say a West Side Highway tunnel is needed to make FT more secure, but an open carport under this building is not a security risk. Ah, the lies they weave.

It's a real slap in the face to the public for the space to be used in this manner. It also makes the spaces with windows looking into the courtyard suddenly very unappealing.

[michelle1]

What I like on the Bloomberg's Tower is perfect geometry.

[ASchwarz]

I just don't understand how the Port Authority can say a West Side Highway tunnel is needed to make FT more secure, but an open carport under this building is not a security risk. Ah, the lies they weave.

It's a real slap in the face to the public for the space to be used in this manner. It also makes the spaces with windows looking into the courtyard suddenly very unappealing.

The two are nothing alike.

The Bloomberg driveway is not an open carport. It's a private secured drive for Bloomberg executives. The West Side Highway is a public street.

Also, Bloomberg is just another tower. The Freedom Tower is the world's tallest building, and the first phase of the World Trade Center. Obviously, Freedom Tower is much more iconic, and has vastly different security needs.

[Stern]

I think it’s a good analogy in that they voluntarily put a west side highway through the center of the building, which everyone agrees is not only blight but also a street-life vacuum. Oooooh, if only I had a cool billion lying around...

[BrooklynRider]

The two are nothing alike.

The Bloomberg driveway is not an open carport. It's a private secured drive for Bloomberg executives. The West Side Highway is a public street.

Also, Bloomberg is just another tower. The Freedom Tower is the world's tallest building, and the first phase of the World Trade Center. Obviously, Freedom Tower is much more iconic, and has vastly different security needs.

The two are EVERYTHING alike in that throughout the city we are seeing cement stanchions and jersey barriers going up at the edge of side walks as if someone couldn't just pull up with a truck load of TNT and detonate to horrible effect from the street. What is the difference between detonating a huge bomb next to a building or fifteen feet away at the curb? Look at the bus bombings in Israel - a bomber can detonate a bus in the middle of a street and destroy building hundreds of yards away.

These "security" issues are pure B.S. Security these days is about keeping the privileged protected from seeing, hearing or being accosted by people of lower classes. Of course there's a security zone around every Federal building, if there weren't you'd see people protesting at them daily. Enough with the bogus "security" issues. "Security" is an excuse for cameras and keeping people away from the very places they should have access to. Many will rightfully argue that 9/11 gave this neocon government the "event" they needed to implement this "agenda of fear".

I also find the argument that Bloomberg is "just another tower" very interesting. We have no design of Freedom Tower, so we can hardly, at this point call it iconic. It will be big, that we know. Iconic is in the eye of the beholder. Repeating press releases don't make the words any truer. There is no reasonable explanation for why Freedom Tower with no tenant currently signed on, requires more security than Bloomberg, a major international media outfit? The Empire State Building was and is even more "iconic" than any building in this country, perhaps the world. Traffic runs along it on three sides. The argument doesn't hold up.

There is nothing about Freedom Tower that one can build an argument for the tunnel upon. If they simply stated that they want to bury West Street to cut down on car noise at the memorial, I'd buy that. If they said they wanted to bury West Street to connect BPC to the rest of Manhattan, I'd buy that.

Burying a roadway at the cost they are talking about to protect a rather ho-hum building simply because it is dubbed "Freedom Tower - a soaring restoration of our skyline", does not hold up. So what do we get, a truck filled with explosives driven into the tunnel to collapse the road and strangle downtown traffic? Anything can be bombed to some horrible effect - including the new proposed tunnel. If we want to look at tunnel "security" or "truck security", you can go visit the police guards who stand around (at taxpayer expense) with their thumbs up there ass at the entry to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel by BPC and at Broadway as it approaches Wall Street. A truck filled with explosives or a volkswagen filled with kiddie balloons can just run them over if they wanted to get the job done.

And, if we want to assume that Freedom Tower is such a HUGE security risk, why build it at all? Or, why not build it away from the "risky, scary" roadway? They have 16 acres to work with and they want to put it next to a road that they believe creates a security risk for the building. Any more press releases we want to repeat and accept without question?

[ZippyTheChimp]

I'm not sure about a similarity between the tunnel and the courtyard, but a potential nice public space is lost. And much of the security rationale around the city is pointless and ridiculous.

An exception: The new SI ferry terminal has signs advising that it is a Security 2 (I think) area, and K-9 teams. I asked one of the officers if there is a ban on photos. He said that photos are permitted.

I just remembered an idea about the tunnel

[ZippyTheChimp]

They are removing the protective blue gunk.

[macreator]

Now if they would only get rid of that stupid antenna on the roof or at least put it on the center of the roof instead of off to the side.

[antinimby]

Does anyone know what the official height of Bloomberg is?
It seems that on some other skyscraper site, the height is somewhat in doubt.

[PHLguy]

It's either 806, or 856, SS.com claims 806 but the buildings blueprints claim 849 with a 7 foot screen on the crown.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Bloomberg from LIC

http://img342.echo.cx/img342/4624/bloomberg366hl.th.jpg (http://img342.echo.cx/my.php?image=bloomberg366hl.jpg) http://img342.echo.cx/img342/9149/bloomberg356sd.th.jpg (http://img342.echo.cx/my.php?image=bloomberg356sd.jpg)

[krulltime]

Nice shots like always!

Love the building.

[Jonathan_Hakala]

As a person who is privileged to occupy a tiny piece of space inside this building, I can share with you that it's also a wonderful building on the inside, with the possible exception of the sculpture in the lobby, which almost no one seems to like.

[krulltime]

oh can you take a photo of that sculpture and see if we like it?

[sfenn1117]

Someone tell emporis that Bloomberg is done.

[BrooklynRider]

HEY EMPORIS!

BLOOMBERG IS DONE!!!

[JMGarcia]

HEY EMPORIS!

BLOOMBERG IS DONE!!!

LOL! :D

Its obvious I know but I'm easily amused lately.

[alonzo-ny]

What has happened to emporis lately, before i found wired new york it was the most up to date site re skyscrapers, now its as though they all became alchoholics and sit around the office all day swigging some whiskey. They are probably still the most reliable, accurate site for stats re existing buildings but its way behind on news, the only news they have is some random company buys random 20 storey towers in somecity, estonia.

[Gulcrapek]

Emporis is a corporation now, they update when it's profitable to do so (i.e. when interest is noted in a certain building).

SkyscraperPage's NYC database is as complete than WNY's, because even though the status of some buildings is sometimes off due to constructions finishing and proposals going into construction etc., every NYC development I see here, at SSP, or any other media is added to a list. The statuses are updated as soon as I find out, which is typically looooong before Emporis updates. They do have the upper hand in lowrise listings of existing buildings though.

Yes, that was a plug.

Er, 731 Lex looks great these days...

[alonzo-ny]

Thats ironic considering its supposed to be about skyscrapers but they sold out man

[alonzo-ny]

What is the correct height of this tower? WNY says 863ft but emporis says 806ft

[Johnnyboy]

i don't like emperois. they always make new york building shorter than claimed and this is not the first time

[macreator]

Emporis is getting Asian-city bias lately in my opinion.

[pianoman11686]

Picture taken 8/1/05:

The mid-block traffic court
http://images.snapfish.com/3447965923232%7Ffp58%3Dot%3E2323%3D%3B33%3D635%3D3 232%3B335449%3A3nu0mrj

[ZippyTheChimp]

Wasted opportunity.

There are usually a pair of security guards on each side. One of the most uninviting open spaces you will find in Midtown.

[macreator]

Also what is the deal with the lift truck (pictured as the orange machine) that has been parked in that driveway for the last few months?

I agree that that driveway is a completely wasted oppertunity and is very sterile -- and windy adding to a very disturbing atmosphere.

[Kolbster]

Wasted opportunity.

There are usually a pair of security guards on each side. One of the most uninviting open spaces you will find in Midtown.


Shame too, cause it's one of the nicest

[macreator]

A shot of the Bloomberg Tower at dusk (August 28th 2005)

http://www.nycityscape.com/images/bloomberg/bloombergnightaug05.jpg

[lofter1]

Any renderings of what the spire on Bloomberg Tower will look like? (Hoping that the thing now seen on top is merely a crane or something like.)

[Jake]

Any renderings of what the spire on Bloomberg Tower will look like? (Hoping that the thing now seen on top is merely a crane or something like.)

I've got some bad news for you. lol, there is no spire and that thing on top is an antenna.

:p

[PHLguy]

What is the correct height of this tower? WNY says 863ft but emporis says 806ft



I think it's 806, 863' is the roof height from sea level, that's what emporis claims. But no one really knows for sure, I don't know and I don't care, it's a nice building regardless of the 50 foot mystery barrier.

[Jake]

I think it's 806, 863' is the roof height from sea level, that's what emporis claims. But no one really knows for sure, I don't know and I don't care, it's a nice building regardless of the 50 foot mystery barrier.

What sea level? lol, the Pacific's? Manhattan is is like 3 feet above sea level, isn't it? Or whatever but surely not 60 feet. Jeez, we're in the 21st century and they don't even know how tall it is?

[ZippyTheChimp]

Street level at Bloomberg tower is 50 feet above sea level.

[lofter1]

I've got some bad news for you. lol, there is no spire and that thing on top is an antenna.:p
Oooohh, that is bad news.

How could they stick that sorry stumpy thing on top of that great tower?

I want names & numbers!!

[londonlawyer]

Is the 3rd Avenue side of Bloomingdales being renovated? It needs it. That building is a dump.

[lofter1]

They've been talking about that for years -- also renovating the side that faces Bloomberg.

Now they almost have no choice but to do a renovation. When it was Alexanders across the street (which looked like crap, too) it didn't make that much difference. Or at least back then Bloomies didn't stick out like the sorry sister she is now.

[BigMac]

September 9, 2005:

http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/7987/bloomlarge8lg.jpg

[lofter1]

^ I love this building, but OMG that spire!!

[Johnnyboy]

o god. take that down

[DA SMAZ]

when did they actually demolish the old Alexander's department store building? Will the new Bloomberg building still have a basement subway entrance on the Lex like Alexander's did?

[Stern]

when did they actually demolish the old Alexander's department store building? Will the new Bloomberg building still have a basement subway entrance on the Lex like Alexander's did?

It will. Maybe its operating, but everytime I've gone to use it, it's closed.

[DA SMAZ]

It will. Maybe its operating, but everytime I've gone to use it, it's closed.


thanx. I always thought that entrance/exit was great. More buildings should do it where feasible. How long was Alexander's vacant?

[lofter1]

when did they actually demolish the old Alexander's department store building?


Google turned up an article from 2.19.1997:The next area for new development will be the former Alexander's Department Store site, which occupies a square block stretching from Lexington to Third Avenue from 58th to 59th Street, Friedman says. This site - the last major assembled site remaining on the East Side in Midtown - will house a mixed-use development, including a major retailer and either a residential component or a hotel.



And another from 5.28.1999 that seems to imply that the building is still on the site:"Nordstrom was also rumored to be shopping another site in New York, the shuttered Alexander's department store on 59th Street and Lexington Avenue near Bloomingdale's, according to Fudderman."


Here's one from 9.27.2000; it states the site is "vacant" and implies that Alexander's had been closed since 1991:The history of this vacant lot on 59th street dates back to 1991 when Alexander's was bought by Steve Roth of Vornado.


I also came across bit of NYC trivia regarding W. W. Alschlager, the architect of the now-destroyed Roxy Theatre (b. 1927, d. 1961):There was also supposed to be a theatre called the Roxy Mansion on Lexington Avenue between 58th and 59th Streets, but it never got beyond the ground-breaking stage. That was the eventual site of Alexander's department store, which was replaced by the nearly completed Bloomberg Building.

[DA SMAZ]

thanx for the great research. I hadn't been to Alexander's since the '80s and always wondered when it closed down.

[wudaconcept]

sorry if this has been brought up before but this building boggles my mind...I see a drop-off courtyard, but where's the on-site parking? does anybody have any information about this? i've been looking everywhere for how resident parking is suppose to work or if there is any, but I get the feeling that you can only move around in limos and taxis if you live here.

[Fabrizio]

you could also take the subway... you could also walk. It´s called "city living".

[Citytect]

No, no, no. You must hire a limo to get around NYC. Therefore, it's obvious the Bloomberg's parking is in Queens.

[macreator]

As much as a City dweller I am, I will admit that I do find it a tad bit odd that for such a luxury building that the Bloomberg tower is billed as, that they didn't add parking.

I guess they just figure that whoever lives in the Bloomberg tower would also be able to afford to have their driver simply go pick the car up at a nearby lot.

[Jake]

LMAO! It's because Bloomberg himself takes the subway!

[Jake]

Snapped some pics today.


From top to bottom...
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b6/JakeW16/choice.jpg

skyline....

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b6/JakeW16/a.jpg

and the infamous "spire" LOL :D...
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b6/JakeW16/PICT00141.jpg

[lofter1]

OUCH ... it hurts to look at it :eek:

[lofter1]

Can we turn the Spire into a campaign issue?

[Jake]

hehe, there's a ladder on it, can you imagine changing the lightbulb in that red signal light? That;s gotta be scary.

These pics were taken from lexington and 67th so Bloomberg Tower is the main thing that's in everyone's view. I initially hated it for obstructing the view of my beloved Citicorp Center but I've come to tolerate it.

I don't know if they officially refer to it as a spire or if someone just called it that and it stuck in my head, but it looks unimpressive, it looks as if a real spire is under construction there.

[lofter1]

The thing that amazes and confuses me about the "Spire" is that Bloomberg is a huge advocate of art, particularly sculpture (witness his support for the number of public installations throughout the city during his administration and many of which he has paid for), so one could think that he would want an interesting and fantastic signature piece to top off the building that carries his name.

Go figure...

[Jake]

He just wants it cheap


CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP

no parking so everyone takes the subway
no spire cuz it's too pricey

NEXT: no windows cuz they reduce worker efficiency,

As far as Bloomberg himself goes I don't personally like him but I think he;s a great mayor. If it was just up to him NYC would be much better developed and we;d be making a lot more money.

[Fabrizio]

The "spire": It looks more like a ladder to nowhere. Theres a Twilight Zone sensibility to it. I´m starting to like it.

[Stern]

Bloomberg had nothing to do with the spire just like he had nothing to do with the condo's overhead. If you must pass your blame to the buildings developer, Steven Roth.

[TLOZ Link5]

Fabrizio, I forget. Have you weighed in on this one yet?

[Fabrizio]

TOLZ: c´mon... it´s great idea: "The Statue of Liberty", "The Freedom Tower", "the Beacon of Progress" ....and "The Ladder to Nowhere".

It would serve as a reality check.

[TLOZ Link5]

I meant the tower as a whole, not the fugly radio antenna. :p

Wouldn't it be excellent if they'd add an actual spire to 1,000 feet, and then just put the antenna on top?

[Fabrizio]

TLOZ: from every photo I've seen ...the building is stunning.. Look at the photo of the ugly "spire" and note how nicely the upper floors and roof line is finished. Look how it sits with the Chrysler in the distance ( nice photo btw).

But what kind of street environment has it created below? I'd like to hear some opinions and reporting on that. This was always a pedestrian friendly area. I well remember the big ugly Alexanders store. It was quite an eyesore and directionless for decades. NYC did not need it. NYC had great department stores like Altman's that closed shop and are missed ...but others like Alexanders and Korvettes were just awfull.

[ablarc]

Alexander's had air curtains.

[lofter1]

... air curtains.
eh? :confused: :confused: :confused:

[lofter1]

Never mind ... I googled:


http://www.berner.com/new/images/nonrecirculating.jpg (http://www.berner.com/air/air.asp)

Non-Recirculating Air Doors/Air Curtains (http://www.berner.com/air/air.asp)

Creates an air seal across an opening to separate two environments and/or prevent flying insects from entering your establishment. Non re-circulating air curtains are used for existing applications as well as new construction. More commonly used because of their ease of installation and cost. Typically they are installed above an opening, although they can be vertically mounted as well.

[czsz]

The building is home to a giant new H&M (because it was such a long walk to the one at Fifth and 54th...)

[TLOZ Link5]

My grandmother from Cincinnati still misses Alexander's to this day. She likes the new building, though.

[ablarc]

Alexander's customers moved to Queens.

[TonyO]

A Feud Closes A Subway Exit At 59th and Lex

BY JEREMY SMERD - Special to the Sun
November 15, 2005
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/23022

A feud between New York City Transit and Vornado Realty Trust will keep an entrance to one of the city's busiest subway stations - on the southeast corner of 59th Street and Lexington Avenue across from Bloomingdale's - closed this holiday season and for the foreseeable future.

The lines of the battle have been drawn and detailed through correspondence, the most recent copies of which were made available to The New York Sun. The dispute remains at an impasse.

Meanwhile, the subway entrance is closed, though it is the only entrance to the southern end of a station that serves parts of the city's busiest subway line: the uptown 4, 5, and 6, as well as the N, R, and W lines.

Vornado constructed the station entrance as part of its 54-story complex known as 731 Lexington Avenue, which was built on the site where the Alexander's department store once stood. The sprawling, block-size building houses the headquarters for Mayor Bloomberg's company, Bloomberg L.P., which completed the move into its new headquarters this summer. Other tenants include Citigroup, the clothing store H&M, and Home Depot.

But officials at New York City Transit have kept the roll gate the size of a garage door shuttered and locked since the station entrance was completed in February, forcing all of the riders who use the uptown station to exit and enter one block north on the corner of 60th Street and Lexington Avenue.

Transit official say snow and ice that sometimes blows off the 868-foot building make the entrance unsafe. The concern stems from two incidents this winter when an icicle fell from an upper story railing above the subway entrance and nearly hit a pedestrian.

In a letter to Vornado's chairman Steven Roth dated September 21, the president of New York City Transit, Lawrence Reuter, wrote: "This entrance will remain closed until this issue is resolved so as to assure the safety of our customers."

Mr. Reuter then added that transit officials would hold onto Vornado's $1 million bond until "appropriate measures are taken."

Vornado Realty, however, has refused to install a canopy over the entrance, arguing that it would do little to protect pedestrians and that the chances of snow and ice blowing off the building are rare. The company said it would defer on these matters to the police department, which is responsible for keeping the sidewalks safe. Vornado suggested temporarily closing off the sidewalk when necessary, an idea New York City Transit has rejected.

In his letter responding to Mr. Reuter and dated October 14, the president of Vornado's New York City office, David Greenbaum, noted that transit officials had previously approved the entrance's plans, which did not include a canopy. Then he went on to list a number of other changes New York Transit officials had requested of the company that were not included in the "MTA approved construction documents," costing the company $114,000.

Mr. Greenbaum's grievances also included a recent request made by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's to relocate a subway globe light because transit officials feared it would get hit by a truck.

Mr. Greenbaum concluded his letter, writing, "Your attention to these matters would be appreciated."

The impasse in the heart of the city's retail district comes as the holiday shopping season gets under way and transit officials offer discount fares be tween Thanksgiving and New Year's, a giveback that will also serve to make the two staircases at the station's 60th street entrance exceedingly crowded.

Elected leaders have been complaining about the closed station for months. The director of community affairs for city councilwoman Eva Moskowitz said the two parties should find a way to mitigate their concerns in order to open the entrance for the shopping season without compromising people's safety.

"It's commendable that the MTA doesn't want to compromise on safety concerns but I think both sides need to work things out," the Moskowitz aide, Jennifer Sedlis, said. Riders yesterday struggled to make sense of the locked gates and turnstiles that greeted them as they got off the uptown no. 6. Beyond the gates, the lights shined, the MetroCard vending machines were on and the wide stairs were spotless.

Diane Gonzalez, an attorney, was already late for a job interview on 57th Street. "You'd think 59th Street would be closer, but now I have to walk 3 blocks instead of two," she said.

[macreator]

I've been wondering about this station for months now. Glad to have the mystery cleared up but more annoyed now that the entrance may never open.

The falling ice thing doesn't seem to make any sense. Going by that logic, pedestrians walking anywhere near the building are in danger. Seems like there must be something else to this mystery.

[lofter1]

Seems like something for Mayor Mike to jump into and get solved PRONTO.

[Stern]

Its a pretty lame excuse considering the city hasn't experienced its first frost yet. If there so adamant on not building an overhang, close the entrance on icy days...

[Citytect]

^Exactly. Why keep it closed all summer because of ice? Idiots.

[Jake]

HAHAHAA, excellent point

[Derek2k3]

Awesome photos:
http://flickr.com/photos/innusa/49201587/in/photostream/

[macreator]

Here's an interesting article shedding some light on the inner activities at Bloomberg HQ and how they affected the design of the tower. The article provides a tour of Bloomberg's new offices and an in-depth explanation of how things are layed out that I have not seen anywhere ese.

Some pictures from the offices are also included in the article -- the first I've seen

Brand Central Station (http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=1608)

Found the article on Bloomberg's website

[antinimby]

Cool shot of the atrium.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/plemeljr/109032552/

[MidtownGuy]

Beautiful photo. Do you all like the emptiness of the "courtyard"? It is so forbidding and creepy- the way guards stand there, discouraging passage.

[onecentralpark]

Some other awesome shots of the court. It really looks more impressive now that it is filled with some pedestrians and cars!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/beaconcourt/

[antinimby]

Honestly, I don't really like the look of the atrium. Too many bars, looks like a giant cage.

[MidtownGuy]

Pedestrians and cars? I've never seen those there. It is lifeless and barren except for the security goons. The best it ever looked was at Christmas time, when there was a tree"thing" in the middle supplying a little warmth, but even then, picture takers were standing sheepishly outside the "court".

Is it even allowed to walk through as a short cut?

[TLOZ Link5]

I've done it, at least. No one stopped me.

[antinimby]

Le Cirque's Velvet Touch Returns to a Jeans Scene


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/05/24/dining/24siri.jpg
Cardinal Edward M. Egan and Sirio Maccioni at an opening party for Le Cirque.


By DAVID CARR
Published: May 24, 2006

FOR months, as the latest incarnation of Le Cirque has been built out in the Bloomberg tower on East 58th Street, regulars have stopped by, ostensibly to check the progress of construction, but mostly scouting to see where they will sit.

Le Cirque, the 3.0 version, is a huge bet — with $18 million already invested — that New Yorkers still yearn for the social validation bestowed by a good table from Sirio Maccioni and his three sons.

They are betting on a restaurant that exhibits all the virulent Darwinism of a high school cafeteria — everyone wants to sit with the cool kids — and further requires them to dress as if they were going to the prom.

Even though the current dining scene is dominated by downtown casual, "people want some glamour, they want to dress up," said Ruth Reichl, editor of Gourmet magazine, rather decked out herself on Monday night at a party held by the magazine at Le Cirque for its own invited guests and attended by some of the sharpest knives in chefdom.

Near the end of the night some pricey French reds were decanted near the chef's table, which was surrounded by members of the New York dining elite including Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Danny Meyer, Rebecca Charles, Dan Barber and Mr. Maccioni himself. The cool kids at the party, as generally happens, had ended up in the kitchen.

And so continues a story as old as the city where it's told. An immigrant, by dint of hard work and long hours, finally gets a restaurant he can call his own. His sons, in spite of his protestations, follow him into the business. They, like their father, are destined to feed the needs of others every day before collapsing into bed, only to wake up and do it again.

Except that this story ends with the family owning the reincarnated Le Cirque, as well as the Manhattan trattoria Osteria del Circo and two more Le Cirque locations in Las Vegas and Mexico City.

For the time being, Marco, the middle son, will work with his father at Le Cirque; Mauro, the youngest, will run Circo; and Mario will return to Las Vegas.

After a string of opening parties, the fancy circus tent at 151 East 58th Street will fling open its doors to actually seat people — carefully, strategically, hierarchically — next Wednesday.

THE latest incarnation of Le Cirque — Le Cirque 2000 served its last meal as 2004 closed — is a stab at a kind of immortality in a business where heat is measured in weeks.

Mr. Maccioni, at age 74, is working in a medium he all but invented, where haute cuisine combines with a carefully managed social hierarchy to create a kind of entertainment combustion.

"Le Cirque spawned certain disciplines that we all follow," said Drew Nieporent of Nobu.

But will a dining scene now stuffed with casual excellence respond to the gaudy elegance of a Cirque feathered into a huge tower on the East Side?

Corby Kummer, an editor at The Atlantic Monthly who writes about food, called Sirio the consummate maître d'hôtel but said the next generation of Maccionis will have to attract a new generation of swells.

"They are out there, but will they dress up and come?" Mr. Kummer asked. "They like Perry Street, they like Mario Batali, they like good food with a more casual approach."

Le Cirque redux is, as the circus décor in the new location suggests, a bit of a high-wire act in a city that is now rife with ambitious chefs and knowing mâitres d'hôtel, many of whom were schooled by Sirio.

Among his feats of hospitality, none has been more Olympian than the one last Thursday night, when 1,400 people showed up to inspect the new restaurant.

"I worry about everything, everything," Sirio said, rocking on his heels in a black patterned tux as the first guests began streaming in. His Old World charms were draped over Bill Cosby, Billy Joel and Tony Bennett. Many of them were lavish in their homage, and he responded with a Tuscan warmth specific to him, speaking Italian to some, French to others, a musically accented English to most.

But the A-list is somewhat ossified, and it is the stream of Euros, downtown scenesters and newly nouveaux riches that must come back if Le Cirque is to elbow its way back to the table.

"Sirio is a complete natural," said Julian Niccolini, a partner at the Four Seasons, standing outside the tent. "You can't go wrong at his restaurant."

"But we are all going after the same clientele," Mr. Niccolini said, "and it will take time to see how it settles out. It is competitive for all of us."


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/05/23/dining/lecirque.190.jpg
Video: Le Cirque's Opening Party. (http://nytimes.feedroom.com/?fr_story=fc28f992d8ef8ff402c626d9f35d0f36fcc29520 )


The party looked much like a rave for seniors, with former regulars trolling to see where they might be sitting once things get under way. But as the night progressed there was enough boldface so that everyone, even Mr. Maccioni, had trouble knowing where to look.

Martha Stewart and Woody Allen were back in the kitchen, sampling the output of the chef, Pierre Schaedelin, at close range, sitting at the chef's table. But word came that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg would be arriving in 10 minutes, and, oh, by the way, Donald Trump was just pulling up. "If they wanted to destroy New York society this would be a good place to start," Joan Rivers said.

PEOPLE keep telling me what a big success it already is, and I tell them, 'Please don't say that,' " Mr. Maccioni said in between air-kisses. "Talk to me in a few years about that."

He is a weave of suave assurance and maniacal insecurities. When he borrowed $100,000 and opened Le Cirque in 1974, he had dashing good looks, years of European training and, perhaps most important, a deep-seated belief that the orphaned son of a Tuscan waiter could fall on his face at any moment.

"It still is that way," he said. "Many times a night, I will go into the bathroom and splash cold water on my face. Not that I am complaining. I have a beautiful restaurant and a great family. I can't expect everything to be easy."

Marco, who has his father's touch with people, left nothing to chance at the party on Thursday night. When a drizzle threatened to ruin people's entrance into a tent that was girded by a host of paparazzi, he ran out into the rain over and over with an umbrella to welcome the returning regulars.

"It's just a little bit of God's blessing on our event," he said, shaking off an umbrella near the entrance.

Just then, Cardinal Edward M. Egan showed up. The rain stopped immediately after his arrival. "We made a special request," Marco said with a wink as his father led the cardinal back to the kitchen.

The implied tent of the main dining room, designed by Adam D. Tihany, is a metaphor for what has been a movable feast. After 22 years in the Mayfair, Sirio took his blend of theatricality and hospitality to the New York Palace Hotel, operating Le Cirque 2000 from 1997 until New Year's Eve 2004.

But Le Cirque 2000, with its two separate dining rooms, did not play to Mr. Maccioni's strength.

"There were two rooms connected by hallway, and he could not keep the same eye on everything." said Clark Wolf, a restaurant consultant.

Mr. Maccioni has very catholic tastes — he was a friend to both Frank Sinatra and Frank Zappa — but while diners will rave about the peerless white truffle risotto, a trip to the new 100-seat dining room will be an opportunity to have their social status examined and affirmed. And even as the rest of New York dining will let in someone dressed in a sweatshirt as long as he's accessorized by a big wallet, Le Cirque holds to a standard, providing a jacket for any man clueless enough to show up without one.

Inside the restaurant during the party, a big clutch of people marveled at the two-story wine tower, painted in "iPod white," and a growing collection of monkey statues in a huge glass case that serves as the centerpiece of the main room.

Ms. Reichl said that the most important decoration at Le Cirque, then and now, is the Maccionis. "A large part of the charm is that he was so great-looking, and now he has three great-looking sons standing with him in the business," she said.

The torch was suspended between them on Thursday night. By 9:30 Sirio, who had spent the night working the door, finally cozied up in a banquette in the new dining room with old friends. Nearby, Marco gathered a bunch of bright young things around a bar serving only tequila. Downing shots, they toasted the future.

"It was chaos," Marco said with a laugh, adding, "The ones who couldn't find my dad just wanted to make sure they have a table when we open. They all said, 'Make sure your dad knows I was here.' "

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[antinimby]

SQUARE FEET

A Tower Goes Up, and a Neighborhood Perks Up (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/realestate/commercial/24tower.html)


http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/05/24/business/24tower.xlarge1.jpg
The Bloomberg Building at 731 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. Vornado Realty Trust, which developed the
site, also acquired nearby buildings to export its retail flavor to a larger part of the neighborhood.


By ALISON GREGOR
Published: May 24, 2006

The Bloomberg Tower at 731 Lexington Avenue, with an upscale residential portion called One Beacon Court, is transforming the commerce of a neighborhood.

The district was once known for its battling department stores, Bloomingdale's and Alexander's. But Alexander's closed in 1992 and the area was dominated for years by the store's gloomy facade until the building was demolished in 1999.

That was followed by years of construction, when shoppers wandered along 59th Street from the Plaza Hotel, at the southeast corner of Central Park, to Bloomingdale's, three blocks to the east, but not much farther.

But with the opening in 2004 of the 1.4-million-square-foot glass skyscraper that houses the headquarters of Bloomberg L.P., the financial news company, and an office for Citigroup, on the full block where Alexander's once stood, a series of new retail outlets, from clothing shops to banks, is rejuvenating a slightly down-at-the-heel neighborhood.

The developer, Vornado Realty Trust, one of the nation's largest owners and managers of commercial real estate, has "changed a neighborhood that was somewhat of a lackluster market to more of an upscale market," said Gary Trock, a senior vice president at CB Richard Ellis and a prominent retail real estate broker. Vornado declined to be quoted for this article.

Vornado handpicked the tower's retail tenants and included the first large national chains to have stores in the neighborhood: Home Depot, the apparel store H&M and the Container Store, which sells storage and organization products.

Vornado also installed two banks, Bank of America and Wachovia, on the Third Avenue side of its skyscraper. The latest incarnation of the renowned restaurant Le Cirque is in a ground-floor location on the tower's motor court, an atrium between two connected towers where pedestrians and automobiles can move between 58th and 59th Streets.

But commercial brokers said Vornado did not stop there. The developer also acquired buildings around the Bloomberg Tower to export its retail flavor to an even larger swath of the neighborhood.

"It was a strategy by Vornado to master plan not only the block that the Bloomberg building sits on, but the neighborhood to some degree," said Josh N. Kuriloff, an executive vice president at Cushman & Wakefield. "They did this with a keen eye toward architecture. They, in my opinion, single-handedly and dramatically increased the value of the neighborhood."

Thus, Vornado built 715 Lexington Avenue, which is architecturally similar to the Bloomberg Tower and has 23,000 square feet of retail space housing the clothing store New York & Company and Zales Jewelers. Just south of that store on Lexington, a space is being renovated for the cosmetics retailer Sephora.

In 2005, Vornado also built the gleaming low building south of the tower at 968 Third Avenue, which houses a pharmacy.

Besides buildings with retail space, Vornado also owns the Architecture and Design Building at 150 East 58th Street, across 58th Street from the Bloomberg Tower. The A & D building is an integral part of a neighborhood long known as a shopping mecca for the interior design trade.

"Vornado is a smart landlord and a knowledgeable landlord, and they decided to go on a shopping spree and ended up buying as much as they could within the marketplace," Mr. Trock said.

Other real estate owners and retailers in the neighborhood are also upgrading their properties. The UJA-Federation of New York is doing a $95 million gut renovation of the building that houses its main offices at 130 East 59th Street. The clothing stores Gap and Banana Republic have leased space in the building for many years, and there will be 85,000 square feet of office space to lease. They are part of a row of apparel retailers along Lexington Avenue that includes Levi's, Nine West, Diesel, Zara and Kenneth Cole, among others.

While Lexington Avenue was always a lively shopping strip, perhaps the biggest renaissance in the area attributed to the Bloomberg Tower has been along Third Avenue.

"The true value was added on the Third Avenue corridor, because that was a less active zone originally," said Gene Spiegelman, an executive director at Cushman & Wakefield.

The potential of the avenue has not escaped real estate developers. In recent years, the developer Donald Zucker constructed a residential building at 997 Third Avenue, cater-corner to the northeast of the Bloomberg Tower, and, in December 2004, leased almost 20,000 square feet of retail space to the clothing store Urban Outfitters.

A tattered old building immediately to the south at 59th Street and Third Avenue, which once had a Pax Wholesome Foods, Dunkin' Donuts and newsstand, will soon be torn down and replaced with a glass-encased North Fork Bank, and will have 6,400 square feet of space and a storage basement, brokers said.

The retail renaissance is not confined to the blocks immediately around the tower, said Scott I. Edlitz, managing principal of ZE Realty, who is marketing 2,500 square feet of retail space in the Urban Outfitters building. Mr. Edlitz said he believed that apparel tenants were displacing the more traditional furniture and home décor vendors in the area.

Mr. Edlitz said rents were increasing because big clothing retailers were "entering the market and pushing the furniture tenants, who typically need more space, further south and east."

Some business owners, especially those who cater to the interior design industry and have showrooms on the street, said they had picked up a few clients among residents of One Beacon Court in the Bloomberg Tower, which has 105 apartments, ranging in price from just under $2 million to $27.5 million.

"Our problem was all the construction, and that's over," said Jahanshah Nazmiyal, owner of Rug & Kilim, which sells antique and decorative carpets at 204 East 59th Street.

Other retailers east of Third Avenue, an area that has traditionally had more service-oriented retailing, like restaurants, locksmiths, dry cleaners, cocktail lounges and delicatessens, said they were feeling the pinch of the Bloomberg Tower, either in the form of rising retail rents or more competition for the potential customers in the office tower and in One Beacon Court.

"I used to be the only baby store," said Stuart Sherman, president of Go To Baby at 315 East 57th off Second Avenue. "Then three years ago, two more opened. Now there's a total of five. With more traffic comes more competition, so it probably evens out."

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[jeffpark]

"Other real estate owners and retailers in the neighborhood are also upgrading their properties. The UJA-Federation of New York is doing a $95 million gut renovation of the building that houses its main offices at 130 East 59th Street. The clothing stores Gap and Banana Republic have leased space in the building for many years, and there will be 85,000 square feet of office space to lease. They are part of a row of apparel retailers along Lexington Avenue that includes Levi's, Nine West, Diesel, Zara and Kenneth Cole, among others."

who is marketing the 85,000 square feet for UJA
and what are they asking per SF??

[TonyO]

NY Observer

Tower of Mike

As Le Cirque Opens, Look Up at Its Housing!
From Bloomberg L.P.’s Koi Fish to Beyoncé,
Tower Matches Mayor Whose New York This Is

Michael Calderone, Tom McGeveran
5/29/2006


“It’s better than having an Applebee’s in the lobby,” said Brian Williams, the NBC anchor who lives 34 stories above the restaurant Le Cirque, in the Bloomberg building at 58th Street and Lexington Avenue.

“Nothing against Applebee’s!” Mr. Williams added. He stood almost inch-deep in the restaurant’s plush crimson carpeting, next to a model of the building complex that had been somewhat crudely constructed from chocolate, never the perfect building material, as some 2,000 of his friends and neighbors—and a few strangers—milled about the restaurant at its opening party May 18.

The Bloomberg building has been open for almost two years. It’s still kind of new. But under the accumulated glances of millions, skyscrapers in New York have a way of becoming invisible, part of the terrain, of appearing to have always been there, very quickly. That’s what happened to the Bloomberg building on May 18, and three nights later when another party thrown by Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl brought the restaurant elite out to toast the opening of the third Manhattan incarnation of Le Cirque.

From the elliptical driveway-cum-courtyard up to its 55th story, this is very much the house Michael Bloomberg built. He didn’t, actually; Steve Roth did. But when his company leased 700,000 square feet of office space in the building, the transaction that identified the building with him—and his era—was complete. Here more than anywhere, an anthropology of New Yorkers under the Bloomberg administration—under the techno-meritocratic, all-seeing free-market gaze of new urban Republicanism—is possible. It’s the city of the future now that the future is upon us, unimaginable in the good old days of Modernism: Everyone and everything is tagged, ID’d and totally transparent to everyone and everything else; it is the total inter-subjectivity of the ideal market.

And what is opaque, what stands out, what fades away, what is tucked away is the proper subject of its politics: It works itself on people, not the other way around. It’s a building that stands as a proscriptive, as well. Its formal name, One Beacon Court, refers to the beacon of light that emanates from the top of the tower.

It’s a strange beacon, in that few see it—it’s a little like the Mayor!—except from the towers of other buildings, maybe Central Park, certainly the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. That’s because it sits between the relatively narrow, cluttered concourses of Lexington and Third Avenues, between 58th and 59th streets.

“Don’t do that,” a security guard said as a guest stubbed a cigarette out on the carefully-chosen paving stones of the central driveway that cuts through the block, delivering black town cars to the restaurant’s doors.

“Ask anyone. You’re not allowed to smoke here. You have to go out to the street, either 59th or 58th.”

The guest stooped to pick up the offending butt.

“Don’t do that!” the guard said. “It’s dirty now!”

Apologetically, the guest moved to shake the guard’s hand in an awkward conciliatory gesture: “I’m not trying to give you any trouble, I won’t do it again.”

“Don’t touch me!” the guard said. “You’ll get that smoke smell on me!”

It’s the Bloomberg building all right, a home to the ethic of his age and his administration, the astonishing cops of hysterical cleanliness in a once-grungy town—just as the Mayor is triumphantly the astonishing cop of fiscal success (our bonds are A+, the highest ever!)—in a once bankrupt town. It is manifested also in an obsessive antipathy to ornament, the order of the day at the Bloomberg building. A Bloombergian utopia, from the Greek for “no place.”

But it is someplace.



THE CHOCOLATE MODEL THAT BRIAN WILLIAMS stood next to was a useful visualization tool: It was brown, of course, where the skin of the real building is composed of oblong panes of smoky-looking glass, separated into stories with white, contemporary-looking cornices represented on the chocolate model with chalky blue stripes.

The square pillar that made up the left half of the chocolate model stood for the 55-story, telescoping square tower that takes up the Lexington Avenue side of the block. On the right-hand side, a shorter chunk of chocolate, a squat outhouse, represented the second building in the complex, on the Third Avenue side, where Le Cirque sits on its ground floor. The space between the two represented what the real building’s occupants call “the Link,” the chief architectural innovation of the design: It is the ellipse-shaped courtyard, surrounded by a glass, horseshoe-shaped structure rising from the space between the two buildings up to the seventh story.

Mr. Williams lives in the top portion of the tower, with gutty Yankees import Johnny Damon and Phillies slugger Bobby Abreu, singer Beyoncé Knowles and, in a corporate Big Love, both former GE chief Jack Welch and current G.E. chief Jeffrey Immelt.

The rest of the building provides the 700,000 square feet of office space that is home to Bloomberg LP, the Mayor’s financial-news service. In the bottom floors: Home Depot, Container Store, a children’s clothing boutique, H&M, consumer branches of Bank of America and Wachovia. Just another 21st-century middle-class tower on the good old Upper East Side.

It’s tempting to view the Bloomberg building, the bulk of which houses Bloomberg LP, as a sort of Pullman Town—and if you don’t know what that is, check your college history and sociology texts: homes, a central factory, a restaurant—not the kind factory people eat in necessarily, but a restaurant—shops, a sort-of central square (more on that later).

Of course it’s not. The people who live in the apartments don’t work at Bloomberg. They shop in the H&M when it’s raining, and they pay service people to pick things up at the Home Depot. Nor will most of the people who work at Bloomberg ever eat at Le Cirque, although they can smell the cooking for free, and the Mayor provides a lot of amazing free food at the company canteen.

But the building’s multi-dexterousness is purely a function of the modern Manhattan real-estate market, where tall towers are wanted but the office space that stacks the stories up aren’t.

And yet, taking a break from the second party in five days to promote the restaurant that is so sui generis that promotion seems impossible, it was not difficult to sense the Bloomberg aura that permeates the building.

This courtyard, to hear the developer tell the tale, is the heart and soul of the building, and it is the main example of its fastidiousness. It functions as a driveway that cuts through the block. In the center is what looks something like a traffic rotary, but with nothing in the center. The entire area is paved with square quartz-like stones, pink striated with dark gray and black. The course of the paving follows the contours of the drive, which in turn follows the shape of the glass curtain wall that surrounds it.

There are entries to a Starbucks coffee shop, signified by a lit-up, circular Starbucks logo; the glassy back entrance into the Bloomberg LP offices, marked with a chrome pole outside the door that reads “Bloomberg” in lit-up blue letters that run up its side; an entrance to the apartment complex at the top of the building, marked only by the word “ONE” engraved in a stone lintel; and the entrance to Le Cirque, marked only by a small, red, lit-up logo suspended from the canopy that houses the entry doors.

It took the developer, Steve Roth, a year to choose the paving stones with the building’s architect, Cesar Pelli. During that time, he considered various centerpieces for the central courtyard of the building—sculptures, mostly.

In the end he decided to leave it blank.

That will seem a big mistake to anyone who was accustomed to reaching the old Le Cirque through the magnificent courtyard of the New York Palace Hotel.

The glass windows of Le Cirque, which take up much of the curtain wall, are corrugated, as if even the pared-down decorative conceits of the restaurant were too flashy to be seen from the courtyard without some sort of muting. No circus here, please.

It’s only ironic that, entering the courtyard-cum-driveway at the center of the building and looking up at the top of the “ellipse” of glass wall above, one guest remarked: “It looks like you’re at the bottom of a toilet-bowl!”

But whatever else is true, the courtyard is memorable. It gives the visitor, even the resident, the vertiginous feeling of swirling down into the center of a drain, standing there.

“So much for the days of a lazy driveway and a sedate entrance,” Mr. Williams had said. “It’s fantastic. A rising tide lifts all boats.”

The offices of Bloomberg L.P. have their main entrance on the Lexington Avenue side of the complex, at No. 731.

The lobby is large and so devoid of ornament that it’s difficult even to discern the source of the soft, amber light that permeates the room.

A visitor to the building first must check in at the desk, where a photograph is taken and an ID tag is produced on the spot. The same image taken for the tag then rotates on monitors behind the desk, with the visitors’ name and pictures of the people whom they are visiting.

Patrick Beehan, a tall, well-constructed young man not long out of college, was dressed typically for Bloomberg in a dress shirt and tie with no jacket, his ID tag and another, “biometric” tag with an image of his thumbprint dangling from his neck. (In the Bloomberg building, employees call these “B-UYnits.” They get you through doors, and allow you to log on to the system from home.)

He has only worked in the global customer support department of Bloomberg LP for two months. But the Bloomberg ethos—it is too unsystematic to be a “philosophy”—is easily absorbed. When Mr. Beehan greeted a reporter in the lobby, he sounded house-proud.

“In our corporate culture, we like to promote communication,” said Mr. Beehan. “You’re going to see that in the design of the building.”

Gesturing toward a large open-plan bullpen, he said: “Part of our design here is that we don’t have any cubicles,” said Mr. Beehan, of the vast open rooms chock full of Bloomberg Terminals (these constitute the proprietary hardware of the Bloomberg information network) with no barriers in between the employees.

“That’s the open communication. You’ll see that all of the conference rooms are open, clear glass,” said Mr. Beehan.

“Our C.E.O. and our chairman of the board have desks right out in the open like everybody else,” he said, and motioned nearby on the busy sixth floor. “The chairman of the board—the gentleman who replaced Mike Bloomberg—his desk is back there behind the koi pond. Right there out in the open. The C.E.O. sits around the corner.”

What about that koi pond?

“There’s a lot of fish tanks,” said Mr. Beehan. “This is our Japanese koi pond. The idea behind the fish tanks is that back in the early 80’s when Michael Bloomberg was starting the company, he had a small fish bowl on everybody’s desk. To get the company off the ground, employees were working 12- or 14-hour days. He wanted them to be able to zone out, take five minutes, take a break, gather their thoughts and come back to work. We have over 8,000 employees, so a fish tank on every desk doesn’t work.”

But fish tanks seemed to be a guiding visual theme in the workplace. “One of our corporate-culture themes is ‘transparency’ at Bloomberg,” said Mr. Beehan. “I’ve been here about two months, so I’m fairly new, but I know a lot of what’s going on. I have access to upper-level management.”

There is art as well, and a lot of it: There’s a large black sculpture suspended from the ceiling, near the television studio. It’s called Cloud, by Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle. “He actually took a model of a super-cell thundercloud that researchers had on a computer at the University of Illinois,” said Mr. Beehan. “He used a milling machine to make this scale model.”

On the sixth floor, there is a hulking black chandelier that hangs low to the ground, with lights consistently flashing. The sculpture is called Image (Rabbit’s Moon), by Raymond Williams, by the artist Cerith Wyn Evans. And what about the flashing sequence of lights? The flickering is actually Morse code, spelling out the word “image” over and over again.

I-M-A-G-E.

“It doesn’t have any utility purpose,” said Mr. Beehan, “but more of an artistic, aesthetic purpose.”

At Bloomberg headquarters, most employees will pass at least once daily through “the Link”—the sixth-floor space between the building’s east and west wings. It is the building’s two-story atrium, a bustling area where employees stock up on free snacks, watching Bloomberg newscasts through the television studio’s glass walls.

“If you want any refreshments, snacks or anything—by all means—help yourself,” said Mr. Beehan. “We have free food at Bloomberg, for employees and guests.”

This is a well-known fact—and a thrilling one, for the 12-year-old in every man and woman—about Bloomberg LP. Hovering above the food-pantry counter (the casual might think of it as a cafeteria, but they would be corrected by Bloomberg LP)—where Bloomberg employees were getting coffee, bottles of water, Doritos and cups of noodles—was a rectangular Times Square–style screen that displayed stock quotes, news and sports. There were flat-screen televisions in the bathrooms showing Bloomberg News; Bloomberg radio was piped in through the elevators’ speakers.

“It’s kind of the central meeting area,” said Mr. Beehan. “It goes with the theme of communication and open corporate culture. We come here in the morning, get a coffee, talk to our colleagues.”

The same kind of openness, by the way, goes on in Mayor Bloomberg’s City Hall.

In stodgier corporate headquarters, a framed painting of the company’s founder, or perhaps some early partners, might adorn the walls.

But for all of the intrinsic Bloombergness of the Bloomberg Building, there is no Michael Bloomberg here, nor any other Bloombergs. The iconic non-personality whose personality animates the entire building is instead represented by the “Bloomberg Museum.” “The Bloomberg Museum right here gives you the evolution since the early 80’s,” said Mr. Beehan. The machines on display date from 1981 through the present day, showing how the clunky, early versions eventually resulted in the more winning and slim terminals of today.

In 1981, when the 39-year-old Mr. Bloomberg and several other partners at Salomon Brothers were made redundant in a merger, he had to figure out what to do with the rest of his life.

Instead of becoming a partner in another firm, like Goldman Sachs, Mr. Bloomberg took the entrepreneurial route. Mr. Bloomberg’s final job at Salomon was running the Information Systems department, and after being let go—with a $10 million check in hand—Mr. Bloomberg set out to design a product that would help financial organizations.

In the mid-1990’s, the Bloomberg terminal became the electronic medium for publishing Bloomberg News, several years before millions of people would be reading The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal online.

“This is the Bloomberg Terminal,” said Mr. Beehan, who logged on to a terminal located in the Link. “This is the product that Bloomberg was built upon.”

Bloomberg Terminals have either two or three screens, and can be used for over 27,000 different functions. Mr. Beehan gamely demonstrated how one could follow Proctor & Gamble stock around the trading floor, or easily access the day’s financial news coming out of China.

Later on, in the terminal sales department, employees began clapping loudly. “We just sold a terminal,” said Mr. Beehan. He was beaming.

“This is a cool architectural feature,” said Mr. Beehan, showing off the spiral escalator that travels between the two stories of the atrium level of the building. “It’s one of its kind in the East Coast. They are building them more in East Asia. There might be two in Las Vegas. It’s an architectural feature we’re proud of.”

East Asia, Las Vegas.



WHILE TRAVELING DOWN THE SPIRAL ESCALATOR, you can still see into the television studio, which is pretty vacant-except for the newswoman in front of the camera, conducting an interview with participant shown on a large screen.

“We don’t have cameramen,” said Mr. Beehan. “It’s all controlled by computers.”

In addition to Bloomberg News programs, Charlie Rose’s television show is also taped in the building. Despite the transparency that permits employees to look in on live Bloomberg News tapings, Charlie Rose’s show is not designed like a fishbowl. With Mr. Rose seated across from his guest at a table, in a darkened room, it’s not the environment where you especially want onlookers with noses pressed against the glass as they do at Today.

Charlie Rose’s greeting room is located in full view of passersby, but the glass is somewhat frosted. Nevertheless, a curious computer programmer or salesperson on break could easily peek inside if they wanted to, through the non-frosted portions. “It gives them a sense of privacy without taking away the theme of transparency,” said Mr. Beehan of the Charlie Rose green room setup. On this day, visitors could watch Kiefer Sutherland being interviewed through the glass wall, if they wanted to. The program would be broadcast at 11 P.M. that evening.

At the end of the tour, Mr. Sutherland passed through the lobby and out onto Lexington Avenue. At the front desk, they’d have known he was coming.

The interior design of the Bloomberg building is infinitely scalable, infinitely replicable, as it has been throughout Bloomberg’s worldwide organization.

“Whether you are in London or San Francisco, it’s a similar interior design,” Mr. Beehan said proudly. “The small bureaus might be a little bit different.” London, Sao Paulo, San Francisco, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York. Everyplace. Noplace.

Earlier on the same day, Robby Browne, a real-estate broker with the Corcoran Group, walked through a penthouse unit at One Beacon Court, 55 stories above the ground. Of the 105 apartments in the building, which have ranged in price from around $2 to $27 million, this is the last apartment left to sell. Penthouse 55W costs $17 million.

One Beacon Court is the name given to the apartments at the top of the Bloomberg building. Since contracts were first signed in 2004, the building has gained a reputation, not unlike the AOL Time Warner Center, as a refuge for people with names: Williams, Knowles, Damon, Welch, Immelt. Someone will pay $17 million for 55W.

Mr. Brown pointed out of the enormous windows toward other buildings: the San Remo, the Empire State Building, the Plaza, its scaffolded girth just barely peeking out from behind the G.M. Building.

“You can even see the Atlantic Ocean,” Mr. Browne said, pointing into the distance.

The apartment measures 4,267 square feet, has 13-foot ceilings, a windowed eat-in kitchen, and large gallery. Its interior, as with all of the rest of them, was designed by the interior designer Jacques Grange, who has had commissions from Revlon chief Ron Lauder and fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent.

The built-ins feature special drawers that can’t be slammed.

Mr. Browne was to show the apartment to a potential buyer a little later in the afternoon.

“Most of them could get into the best co-ops,” said Mr. Browne of Beacon Court buyers. But the best coops don’t treat their residents like hotel guests, which is one of the great promises of the new breed of luxury apartment in Manhattan: 24-hour doorman, concierge, valet parking, fitness center, even a spacious room for business meetings with a large, flat-screen television.

“This is how a lot of people want to live now,” Mr. Browne said.

The restaurant is seen as an amenity for the apartments. Though Mr. Williams said he planned to save dinners at Le Cirque for special occasions, it isn’t difficult to imagine Beyonce Knowles or Johnny Damon or Jeffrey Immelt organizing regular reservations, as Louise Sunshine has done for two nights of every week from the time the restaurant opens.

“I wish it had opened two years ago,” said Ms. Sunshine, speaking of One Beacon Court’s new restaurant. “I think if Le Cirque had opened a year and a half ago, we could have increased from $3,500 to $5,000 a square foot.”

But the building is a commercial success.

“Vornado and Steve Roth have such pride in the building, making it for residents to have their own private dinners in the building,” said Ms. Sunshine.

In April 2001, on the cusp of declaring his candidacy for mayor, Mr. Bloomberg signed his 25-year lease. In the end, Bloomberg got 700,000 square feet in the new building, starting at the third floor, at a reported estimated cost of $73 a square foot.

Naming rights were not included in the deal. But the inevitability was that the latest building to pierce the midtown skyline, a building of valets and flat-screen televisions, would be known as the Bloomberg Building. What else could it be called? .

The Mayor was on hand during the May 18 opening party for Le Cirque, escorted by a tuxedo-clad Mr. Maccioni, grinning from ear to ear.

Martha Stewart, whose former personal chef serves as the executive chef at Le Cirque, was there. “I am a friend of the family and a long-time supporter of Sirio and his efforts,” she said. She had gotten inside Le Cirque even before the opening party, having had a meal there with her daughter, Alexis, the previous Saturday night.

Woody Allen and Soon-Yi were there; Bill Cosby, Patricia Arquette, Billy Joel, Tony Bennett, Walter Cronkite, Joan Rivers, Ed Koch, Helen Gurley Brown, Montell Williams, Denise Rich, Jay McInerney, Armand Assante and Cardinal Edward Egan. People with names, but no B-Units.

“I think the neighborhood just went up a notch,” Brian Williams said.

“We’re very close friends of Sirio and his lovely lady, and they invited us to Italy,” said Tony Bennett. “I’ve always been a regular. It’s very personal and magnificent food and wonderful atmosphere.”

“It’s their home away from home—with a certain style,” said Sirio Maccioni two days before the opening party, and “type of food.” “The difference between many restaurants is that you hear an inhuman voice. Here, I answer the phone. My son, answers the phone. So people know that we are here to do whatever we can do.”

“I could not open a different restaurant than this,” he said. “I think I know what New York people want. I am a New Yorker. The people want to come in and feel at home.”

And, in fact, they were at home. La Guardia has an airport and Koch had a musical. But Bloomberg has a building.

[lofter1]

No matter what they say about this building it still has the ugliest "spire" doo-hickey stuck on the top.

[jeffpark]

i was there yesterday and in saw that there are still 4 retail space not leased 1 on each side of the building

[Peakrate212]

Here is a building that I didnt not really like, but I have grown to appreciate it...The center court is amazing. Its pretty lively and seems to fit into NYC very well.

I think the mult-use of the building helps make it kinetic

[kliq6]

This building and all its purposes is a great addition to the Eastern Plaza district and has helped spur other apartment buildings as well as the redevlopment of that office building across the street from it by Sciame

[jeffpark]

What’s with that building at the N/W Corner of 58th and Lexington, right behind the UJA building at 133 E. 58th Street, that Jack Resnick & Sons own,
it looks like crap they have old air conditioner units coming out the windows, and I think that’s the corporate headquarters for Jack Resnick and sons they (as one of the oldest and most known real estate families in NY) should be embarrassed for having office’s there??

[kliq6]

Jack Resnick offices, not a crappy building

110 East 59th Street
New York, NY 10022
212.421.1300 (phone)
212.758.2948 (fax)

[jeffpark]

From the Architect’s web page
Swanke Hayden Connell Architects
www.shca.com


United Jewish Appeal Federation of New York


After various studies by SHCA, rather than relocate, this large fund-raising organization decided to upgrade their 270,000 sq ft building in a prime retail location in Manhattan. Most of the new floors are a mixture of open plan with interior/exterior offices, conference rooms, and support areas. Specialty spaces include a conference/ballroom supported by a full service kitchen and a "Town Square," to encourage interaction of employees from all departments. Renovation of this 1950s building involved consolidation of the core; new passenger/service elevators; redesigned mechanical/electrical/ plumbing systems; new voice, data and cabling infrastructure; new ADA compliant toilets; a new ground floor lobby; replacement of roofs; and a new curtain wall. The tenants stayed in the building during construction.

[stache]

I like this building because it has a nice, expensive finish. However, if you look through the courtyard on either side, the views of other buildings are less than spectacular, and one of those buildings is relatively new.

[lofter1]

The view of Bloomingdale's through the court yard is pathetic.

You'd think that Bloomingdale's would get their act together and spiff up the digs.

[londonlawyer]

The view of Bloomingdale's through the court yard is pathetic.

You'd think that Bloomingdale's would get their act together and spiff up the digs.

I agree. Bloomies is an embarrasment.

This area has made signficant strides in recent years, but more needs to be done. There are several small dilapidated buildings on Lex in the 50's and 60's (and 40's). First and foremost, the N.E. corner of 57th and Lex needs a serious makeover. I would like to see all of the buildings west of Hammacher Schlemmer and east to the corner of Lex razed and replaced with something nice. That is such a prime corner that should (and eventually will) house magnificent office space. I am sure that someone (perhaps Vornado) is trying to assemble the six or so junky little buildings on the site, but the sooner the better!

Contrast the magnificent northwest corner with the filthy, ramshackle northeast corner.
http://www.geocities.com/george9t8/ny_14.jpg

[antinimby]

Bloomingdale's is desperately in need of an overhaul, but how can one do it without any major disruptions to the business?

[JCMAN320]

How is that ramshackle, the upper floors are all lit up and there is a shoppe on the bottem. Damm not everything has to be huge and one big super block.

[ablarc]

Ramshackle?

[ZippyTheChimp]

Has anything changed at the "courtyard?"

I haven't been by there in months. Last time I was, it would rate as one of the most unfriendly spaces in New York, a glorified driveway with humorless security guards at both ends.

A wasted oppportunity, in my opinion.

[TonyO]

I walked by the courtyard yesterday. There was one security guard in the center. People looked to be walking in and out, although I am not sure they were supposed to be there or not.

[MidtownGuy]

Londonlawyer strikes again!
There is nothing wrong with that corner. The building is filled with vibrant shops that serve the community. It is certainly not ramshackle! There is an upscale gym, a tanning salon, a vitamin shop, a deli, and Belmora pizza, which makes the best pizza for blocks around. It's packed all day with happy people munching, because it fills a very real need for human beings- to eat!

Magnificent office space????? Hah! No doubt it would be another boring, bland, glass box that depletes architectural diversity... Nothing magnificent in that. Perhaps the cubicle dwellers could try chewing on the deposit slips of the bank branch that would probably move in below those heavenly offices. It is a fact that, nowadays, when a building with these kinds of shops is torn down, it is replaced with one or two huge retail spaces that do not serve as many diverse needs.

Tha "magnificent northwest corner" contains a Starbucks on it's ground floor, one of 179 in Manhattan, last time I checked.

[londonlawyer]

Obviously, we have different opinions, Midtown Guy. You favor grit and are disposed toward the proletariat. I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. I just have a different perspective.

The two small buildings just north of that corner on the east side of Lex are filthy and run-down, and they contain disgusting little shops. The two little buildings on the north side of 57th, located just east of the corner building, are similarly dilapidated. Lastly, the building on 57th and Lex, while not horrific like the little ones on either side, is nothing special and is totally underultized space in such a prime location. If they can tear down The Drake and the YMCA building, this lackluster structure certainly doesn't warrant preservation.

These buildings are on some of the most valuable property in the world and could be better utilized especially considering New York's acute shortage of office space, hotels and housing. A gym and vitamin shop really don't belong there. I guarantee that a developer (quite possibly Vornado) is assembling that site and ten years from now, that corner will be completely different.

Out of curiosity, are you one of the people who sympathisizes with the residents of the rent stabilized building on CPS who are being evicted?

[MidtownGuy]

Zippy, I couldn't agree more. The courtyard of Bloomberg tower could have been beautiful, an amenity for the area. Instead, it is cold and lifeless, unwelcoming to the extreme.

[MidtownGuy]

Out of curiosity, are you one of the people who sympathisizes with the residents of the rent stabilized building on CPS who are being evicted?
Not pertinent. And I am ambivalent about that.

You favor grit

Hardly! I'm a professional, successful designer. I like things to look beautiful. My idea of beauty is simply more nuanced.
Grit refers to dirt. I hate grit. It can be cleaned off, it doesn't require demolition.

[ablarc]

Grit refers to dirt. I hate grit. It can be cleaned off, it doesn't require demolition.
^ Another pearl.

.

[JD]

The spiffy 59th Street subway extrance that goes through the base of the Bloomberg Building has never been opened. Months ago the reason for this closing was concern over falling snow & ice. Not a whole lot of that going on right now--why on earth isn't that entrance open?

Perhaps Bloomberg should call 311...

[antinimby]

Security issues?

[pianoman11686]

GIMME SHELTER

By BRADEN KEIL

July 6, 2006 -- Big MACK ATTACK

http://www.nypost.com/photos/nyphome07062006044.jpg

The penthouse at One Beacon Court that saw a price drop from $31.25 million to $25 million has been sold to David Mack and his wife, Sondra. Mack, who serves as vice chairman of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority and sits on the board of his family's thriving New Jersey-based real-estate conglomerate, Mack-Cali Realty Corporation, had the apartment purchased for close to the asking price under a corporate name.

The unit, at just under 8,700 square feet, is the largest in the building on East 58th Street. It includes six bedrooms, 6 1/2 baths, two 100-foot-long terraces, 14-foot ceilings, a gallery, a conservatory, a sitting room off the large master bedroom and the new Le Cirque an elevator ride away.

The Macks will join such illustrious One Beacon Court residents as Jack Welch, Yankee Johnny Damon, Beyoncé Knowles and anchor Brian Williams.

The penthouse had been owned by record exec Alan Meltzer. It was listed earlier this year at $31.25 million by Sotheby's. Meltzer bought it last year for $27 million and has flipped it for a loss.

Meltzer had bought Jon Corzine's duplex condo at 515 Park Ave. in 2001 for $18.8 million, then sold it for almost $1 million less later that year.

Copyright 2006 NYP Holdings, Inc.

[stache]

GIMME SHELTER

By BRADEN KEIL

July 6, 2006


Mack, who serves as vice chairman of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority and sits on the board of his family's thriving New Jersey-based real-estate conglomerate, Mack-Cali Realty Corporation, had the apartment purchased for close to the asking price under a corporate name.



Copyright 2006 NYP Holdings, Inc.

In today's Gimme Shelter column, the Post's Braden Keil goes absolutely penthouse crazy! Fine and dandy, but the big news is that record executive Alan Meltzer sold his penthouse at One Beacon Court (ridiculously huge terrace at left)—not long after PriceChopping the shit out of it. The $25 million sale, to MTA vice-chairman and New Jersey real estate biggie David Mack, means that Meltzer lost $2 million in the failed flip. How will he cope? Probably by unleashing another Scott Stapp album on the world.

From Curbed.com-

[BigMac]

New York Times
July 9, 2006

To Find 1 Beacon Court, Better Ask for Bloomberg

By SAM ROBERTS

Tenants typically spend millions of dollars for naming rights to their flagship buildings. Michael R. Bloomberg decided against paying a cent. But guess what nearly everyone calls his company's new headquarters in Manhattan?

The official street address is 731 Lexington Avenue. The landlord, Vornado Realty Trust, is marketing the residential tower of the building, which occupies the full block between Third and Lexington Avenues and 58th and 59th Streets, as One Beacon Court. Le Cirque, the restaurant that recently opened in the elliptical courtyard, further identifies its address as 151 East 58th.

Almost everybody else, from the city's Independent Budget Office to a number of real estate guides, knows it as the Bloomberg Building or Bloomberg Tower. The financial information and media company founded by Mr. Bloomberg, called Bloomberg L.P., is the anchor tenant, with 750,000 square feet.

A spokeswoman for the Postal Service said mail addressed to the Bloomberg Building in ZIP code 10022 would arrive promptly.

"One Beacon Court? I don't know what you're talking about," said Mitchell S. Steir, the chief executive of Studley, a real estate brokerage firm. "Everyone knows that as the Bloomberg Building."

It's hard to say whether the name would have been so readily embraced if Mr. Bloomberg had not been elected mayor in 2001, while the 55-story building, designed by Cesar Pelli and his son Rafael, was being constructed on the site of Alexander's department store. Bloomberg L.P. had signed the lease earlier in the year.

(As a prospective mayoral candidate, Mr. Bloomberg had decided against accepting $14 million in tax concessions to move his headquarters there. He resigned as chairman, but still owns the company.)

"Bloomberg" adorns a metallic pillar on one side of the building's main entrance on Lexington and a small canopy over the employees' entrance in the courtyard, and appears between One Beacon Court and Le Cirque on an unobtrusive vertical sign at the 58th Street driveway.

Why One Beacon Court?

"People thought of it as Alexander's, and we had to come up with something brand new, something significantly different," Melvyn H. Blum, executive vice president of Vornado, explained three years ago. "Our team — the owners; marketing, design and advertising consultants — struggled for a year or so and threw out thousands of ideas.

"First, we looked at history and at names associated with the block: the Lexington Opera House/Terrace Garden, Finkenberg's Furniture, Liederkrantz Hall, Daniel Winken's Brewery, the Lido Bowling Recreation Arena and Proctor's Pleasure Palace, a theater," he said, in an interview for an article in The New York Times in 2003. "We also looked for significant historic architectural buildings — for example, a palace in Spain or France with a courtyard or tower. At one point we considered the Pantheon."

"Beacon" was inspired by the illumination of the upper stories of the tower, and "Court" by the courtyard.

This story about the building's more everyday name has no villains, and no heroes, either, unless you count Mr. Bloomberg as self-effacing or, perhaps, as a masterful negotiator. Still, in a city consumed by wealth and power, and by the desire not to rub the right people the wrong way, nobody wanted to talk about it publicly.

Howard J. Rubenstein, a spokesman for Steven Roth, the chairman of Vornado, declined to comment on whether naming rights were offered to Bloomberg L.P. during negotiations over the lease. The mayor's office was similarly mum.

So was Bloomberg L.P. But the gist of the discussions — a naming opportunity was suggested, no specific price was discussed, the Bloomberg organization demurred — was confirmed by a former employee of the company.

The mayor's memoir, "Bloomberg by Bloomberg," sheds some light, though, on the value he places on his name and on his knack for self-promotion. He was explaining how he figured out what to call the company and the computer terminal he invented and marketed.

"If we were going to build our business, we, too, needed a personality," Mr. Bloomberg wrote. "The obvious choice? Me. Our competitors' founders, Messrs. Dow, Jones, Reuter, Knight, and Ridder, were all dead. I, on the other hand, was alive and out making speeches and sales calls every day in city after city around the world, turning my name and work into a great weapon that others in the financial news and market data businesses couldn't match.

"And since I'd spent so much time demonstrating our product, people had begun to mentally interchange me with the terminal. It was only a matter of time before traders and salespeople began referring to the black box on their desk as the Bloomberg.

"When we had an opportunity to change company names (a potential trademark conflict arose with the Market Master name)," Mr. Bloomberg wrote, "I acquiesced to a decision the marketplace already made."

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[TREPYE]

New York Times

"Beacon" was inspired by the illumination of the upper stories of the tower, and "Court" by the courtyard.


The top section that lights up have condos in it or is it ornamental??

[jeffpark]

there is still some vacant Retail space at this building.

[americasroof]

The official street address is 731 Lexington Avenue. The landlord, Vornado Realty Trust, is marketing the residential tower of the building, which occupies the full block between Third and Lexington Avenues and 58th and 59th Streets, as One Beacon Court. Le Cirque, the restaurant that recently opened in the elliptical courtyard, further identifies its address as 151 East 58th.

Almost everybody else, from the city's Independent Budget Office to a number of real estate guides, knows it as the Bloomberg Building or Bloomberg Tower. The financial information and media company founded by Mr. Bloomberg, called Bloomberg L.P., is the anchor tenant, with 750,000 square feet.

O.K. according to the precedent set by renaming another thread on this forum to an unwidely accepted name, shouldn't the BT thread be renamed 731 Lexington or One Beacon Street or 151 East 58th?

[Stern]

O.K. according to the precedent set by renaming another thread on this forum to an unwidely accepted name, shouldn't the BT thread be renamed 731 Lexington or One Beacon Street or 151 East 58th?

Although I do not agree with the renaming of the Freedom Tower thread I respect the decision to do so. That said this thread will keep the name Bloomberg Tower.

[stache]

Logic prevails!

[pianoman11686]

http://static.flickr.com/112/280039878_c94aada910.jpg

x-eyed blonde's photostream (http://www.flickr.com/photos/baha1210/)

[ying]

may i ask what precedents does the bloomberg tower's facade reference to which other buildings in the world?? what inspired pelli cesar & associates to decide that building?

[ablarc]

what precedents does the bloomberg tower's facade reference to which other buildings in the world?? what inspired pelli cesar & associates to decide that building?
Pelli is definitely an eclectic borrower from precedent. Here I can see shades of RCA Building, McGraw-Hill and Daily News --all by Raymond Hood. You might also find echoes of Irving Trust (now renamed).

[BigMac]

Curbed
December 6, 2006

Urban Holiday #1: One Beacon Court

by Lockhart

http://www.curbed.com/2006_12_1beaconxmas.jpg
[Photo by mrgeneko (http://www.flickr.com/photos/geneko/) from the Curbed Photo Pool. Caught an urban holiday tableau around town? Drop it in the pool (http://www.flickr.com/groups/curbed/pool/) or kick it to tips@curbed.com.]

Something about the tree is just garish enough to work, no?
· Christmas at One Beacon Court (http://www.flickr.com/photos/geneko/315264432/in/pool-curbed/) [mrgeneko (http://www.flickr.com/photos/geneko/)/Curbed Photo Pool]

Copyright © 2006 Curbed

[antinimby]

Disputed Station Entrance Near Bloomingdale's Could Open Soon


By ANNIE KARNI
Special to the Sun
December 20, 2006 (http://www.nysun.com/article/45442)


If getting to Bloomingdale's via the 4, 5, and 6 lines seems more difficult than usual this holiday season, it may be due to an unresolved conflict between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Vornado Realty Trust that has closed a subway entrance at one of the city's busiest stations.

Because of a safety issue raised by the MTA, the sole entrance on the south side of the station, at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, has been closed since it was constructed by Vornado about a year ago. The entrance leads into the building at 731 Lexington Ave., home of the headquarters of Bloomberg LLP and many retail businesses.

The possibility that ice could fall from eaves on the 54-story building makes the entrance a safety hazard for riders entering and exiting the station, according to the MTA, which closed the entrance before it was supposed to open last February. The dispute has lasted for almost a year because of disagreement about which party is responsible for preventing the falling ice.

Vornado has refused to make the changes to the station entrance demanded by the MTA, arguing that the original entrance plans received MTA approval. The MTA is retaining a $1 million bond that belongs to Vornado until the issue is solved.

In the midst of an unseasonably warm winter that has produced little fear of falling ice, a spokesman for the MTA said an agreement is currently being reviewed by both parties. "We're hoping to open very shortly, we just don't know when," the spokesman, James Anyasi, said.

Upper East side residents have expressed skepticism about the MTA's claims of progress. "I've heard that the attorneys for the various parties are talking," the chairman of the transportation committee of Community Board 6, Lou Sepersky, said."That's the same recitation that I heard two years ago when I first got involved."

Community Board 6 issued a resolution last week urging the parties to negotiate a prompt settlement of the sidewalk safety issue, and requested that the Department of Buildings get involved if necessary.

In a worst-case scenario, the city could order Vornado to vacate the building if it is found in violation of the zoning easement, which allows the MTA to run a property owned by Vornado.

Local leaders and community members say they are less concerned with which side is to blame for the closure than with restoring service at a crowded station during the busiest time of the year.

"The Lexington line is the most heavily utilized line in the subway system," City Council Member Jessica Lappin, who represents the area, said. "Restricting the circulation of passengers there is bad for safety and for commerce. This seems ridiculous. There's got to be a way to get both sides together and reopen the station."

"There are situations where there are up to 10 people waiting behind one turnstile," the chairman of Community Board 6, Lyle Frank, said, raising the concern that subway riders might not be able to exit the station quickly in an emergency situation.

© 2006 The New York Sun, One SL, LLC

[Stern]

Hurrah.

NY1:

New UES Subway Entrance To Open This Weekend

After two years sitting dormant, a new subway entrance will finally open to the public this weekend.

The entryway at the corner of 59th Street and Lexington Avenue has been closed since its construction.

It remained locked because of a safety dispute between New York City Transit and building owner Vornado Realty Trust.

Councilman Daniel Garodnick says the disagreement has been resolved and the entrance will open this Sunday.

The station serves uptown Number 4, 5 and 6 trains, as well as the N, R, and W lines.

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/images/live/111/221477.jpg

[GreenwichBoy]

:cool: :cool: :cool: About time!!!!

[macreator]

Finally!

[Viktorkrum77]

I adore this building. Seems like all the newest buildings share this common blue glass, not that I'm complaining, it looks quite nice. :)

[BigMac]

weyhugo on Flickr
September 23, 2007

Larger Size (http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1347/1428927999_5de64fc15f_b.jpg)

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1347/1428927999_5de64fc15f.jpg

[Skylimitone]

Exceptional, I love this building!

[londonlawyer]

I also think it's great. However, that stretch of Lex has a lot of junk that I'd love to see razed.

[MidtownGuy]

At night practically the whole top half of the tower looks dark and abandoned(except for the crown) because it's just condos for the likes of Beyonce up there and it seems no more than 2 or 3 residents are actually in town at any given time.

[stache]

Which represents the future of this entire city -

[Skylimitone]

Which represents the future of this entire city -

Maybe just Manhattan, the rest of us will commute in from Far Rockaway, LOL.

[stache]

Yes I am REALLY looking forward to that!

[alonzo-ny]

Just noticed this on google earth

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2350/2277966032_14063f7772.jpg

[macreator]

Take a look at the Time Warner Center -- it's mid-construction on Google Earth as well. The site for 7 World Trade is still debris covered which leads me to believe that Google hasn't updated the satellite imagery for NYC since 2003.

[scumonkey]

The site for 7 World Trade is still debris covered which leads me to believe that Google hasn't updated the satellite imagery for NYC since 2003.It's there......you just have to check off the 3-D buildings button, they have a fully rendered 7 WT building right where it should be.
Other parts of the city have been satellite updated but it's spotty at best.

[Jim856796]

The office space in the Alexander Tower is supposed to go up to the 9th floor of this building. It's a condo tower whose lower floors are supposed to be the headquarters of the Bloomberg company.

[Stern]

Thanks for the update :rolleyes:

[nykid17]

Some picks from a couple of weeks ago.http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3281/2561797420_6f8a32403c_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3022/2561797426_7cd1cd4670_b.jpg

[NYNY]

I think I would prefer living in this building over 15 Central Park West for some reason.