1552 Broadway - The I. Miller Shoe Building (Times Square) - by Louis H. Friedland

[lofter1]

Renovation / restoration of the facade of this little jewel of a building at 1552 Broadway on the east side of Times Square at Broadway & West 46th Street is in the works.

The current building is the "I. Miller Shoes Building". That company originally leased the site in 1920:

$4,635,000 TIMES SQ. LEASE
Shoe Manufacturer Takes Over Broadway Corner With Option to Buy.

NY TIMES
December 23, 1920, Thursday
Section: Real Estate

The four-story building on the northeast corner of Forty-sixth Street and Broadway has been leased for a long term of years by I. Miller, shoe manufacturer, with an option to purchase the property for $1,000,000.

The current building went up in 1926 - 1929.

In 2002, when the Broadway musical version of the great 1957 NYC film "Sweet Smell of Success" was about to open, the NY Times took a tour of Times Square to check out what still existed from that black and white world of 40+ years earilier. The Times reported:

... Opposite Falco's building is one of Broadway's gems, unaltered but obscured, the former I. Miller shoe store (1929). The two-story box with the limestone facade still features statues of Ethel Barrymore, Marilyn Miller, Mary Pickford and Rosa Ponselle in second-story niches. The original sign, which made a cameo appearance in the film, is either gone or covered over by billboards and awnings hawking the T.G.I. Friday's restaurant inside.

The Community Board 5 Calendar for October showed this application
"For work on designated properties" submitted by Tobin + Parnes Design Enterprises:

Installation of new two story Broadway storefront to replicate original building storefront; new storefront and windoow infill on 46th Street facade to replicate orignal elements; restoration of 46th Street facade including four statues and parapet; inistallatin of new awnings, blade sign, installation of two new roof mounted signs; reconstruction of existing roof mounted structural support for signage.

It was posted HERE two years ago (December 7, 2005) that the Riese group had re-purchased the building:

Dennis Riese just bought back the T.G.I.Friday's building at 1552 Broadway — one of his family's previously owned pieces — for $48 million, or about $3,200 a foot.

In 1999, during a massive restructuring, Northstar had bought the 46th St. property along with 729 Seventh Ave., and then leased them back to the family company, National Restaurant Management, developed by the late Murray Riese.

Dennis, now chairman of the Riese Organization and Murray's son, also bought back the retail condo at 729 7th Ave. last June.

***

And this was posted HERE last winter (February 22, 2007):

The TGIF gang turned their cock-eyed talents on this great old building at
the NE corner of Broadway / W. 46th (aka 1552 Broadway) in the heart of Times Square:



The original (now partially hidden behind the signs):





Some history about this little building:

Shoes for Show Folks

Q. Looming over Times Square, on the north side of 46th Street just east of Broadway, are four statues of great actresses from the 1920's in some of their most famous roles. Above them is an inscription saying that ''famous show folks'' bought their shoes at this shop. What was the shop, and who put up those statues?

A. Israel Miller, a shoemaker from Poland, arrived in New York in 1892 and began making shoes for theatrical productions. His designs were popular with many vaudeville performers, who turned to him to produce their personal footwear. In 1911 he opened a small store in a brownstone at 1552 Broadway at 46th Street, which he soon expanded into the adjacent property at 1554 Broadway, as well as to the showrooms on the upper floors of both buildings.

When he acquired long-term control of the property in 1926, Mr. Miller unified the buildings' facades, using marble with granite trim and bronze fittings around the showcase windows. The wall along West 46th Street, beneath the cornice, bears the inscription, ''THE SHOW FOLKS SHOESHOP DEDICATED TO BEAUTY IN FOOTWEAR.''

Niches were added along the wall to honor four of New York's then-favorite actresses. Mr. Miller released a public ballot to pick actresses in drama, musical comedy, opera and film. The winners were: Ethel Barrymore as Ophelia, Marilyn Miller as Sunny, Rosa Ponselle as Norma and Mary Pickford as Little Lord Fauntleroy.

Mr. Miller commissioned Alexander Sterling Calder to make these sculptures, which were unveiled on Oct. 20, 1929.

In 1990 the organization ''Save the Theaters,'' seeking landmark status for the facade, prepared a report for the Landmarks Preservation Commission with this information. Landmark status was denied.

In NYC Business Reigns Over All ...
Christmas cheer all round as Riese regains 1552 B'way

Real Estate Weekly
Dec 7, 2005

Dennis Riese, chairman of the Riese Organization, got the best Christmas gift he could have asked for this week when he closed on a $48 million deal to buy "the most important property" in his career.

Riese paid a whopping $3970 per square foot for the 12,091 s/f 1552 Broadway, home of the World's most popular and successful T.G.I. Friday's.

It was money well spent, according to Riese, who has been credited with reversing the fortunes of the family-run firm and returning it to its status as one of the city's premier restaurant companies.

"Not only have I turned the family's fortunes back around completely, but I am proud to own one of the corners of the Crossroads of the World," said Riese.

1552 Broadway was one of two Times Square properties that were originally owned by National Restaurants Management, Inc. (NRMI), the company developed by Dennis' father, the late Murray Riese. The other property is the retail condominium at 729 7th Avenue. In 1999, the two properties were sold to the New York City-based REIT, Northstar, and were then simultaneously leased back to NRMI, as the main piece of a massive re-structuring of all the Riese properties.

***

[lofter1]

From Lost New York City blogspot ...

Miracle on W. 46th Street

February 14, 2007



Is the TGI Friday restaurant corporation secretly a lover of history and architecture?

I ask this only because I could never fathom how the wonderful facade of the I. Miller Building on the northeast corner of 46th Street and Seventh Avenue just off Times Square has survived all these years, and not been covered over by the red-and-white billboard of TGIF, which occupied the ground floor space of the buidling.

Passersby who occasionally look up may know this building better as the former vainglorious shoe emporium which proclaimed in carved words still visible: "The Show Folks Shoe Shop Dedicated to Beauty in Footwear." Now there's a slogan. Below this motto stand four inset statues, all great women of the performing arts in their separate disciplines. They are, from left to right: Mary Pickford as Little Lord Fauntleroy; Rosa Ponselle in "Norma"; Ethel Barrymore as Ophelia; and Marilyn Miller in the title role in the musical "Sunny."



I doubt most of the swarming tourists eating their super nachos in TGIF know who any of these once-great stars are, with the possible exception of Ethel (that's her above), since Drew Barrymore has kept the name of that acting clan alive. (Actually, the "Ethel" in her name IS blocked by the TGIF sign, so folks might think that is Drew up there.) And silent film buffs will remember Pickford. Ponselle and Miller have suffered the greatest fall-off in fame. Miller (below) was once the preeminent musical theatre star of her day. She scored a hit with "Sunny" just four years before this statue was unveiled; she died seven years later.



It's a lovely and poignant frieze to gaze upon, a testimony to the fleeting fame of the performers that have tried their luck in the adjoining streets over the past 100 or so years. And a quick check in the AIA Guide reveals why it's survived. Apparently, the exterior was landmarked in 1999. (How is suffered through the Times Square boom years leading up until then is another question.) This is probably because the statues were all sculpted by A. Stirling Calder, Alexander's pa, and the same guy who carved George Washington under the Washington Arch. They date from 1929. So we'll be able to enjoy the visages of these four women for years to come. If only the landlord would polish them up a bit.

P.S. — Another weird fact: I. Miller hired Andy Warhol as its chief illustrator in the mid-1950s.

[lofter1]

I. Miller add for shoes & The Ziegfeld Follies sometime in the 1920s ...

***

[lofter1]

Another weird fact: I. Miller hired Andy Warhol as its chief illustrator in the mid-1950s.

I. MILLER

By hiring Warhol as their sole illustrator, I. Miller was attempting to modernize their image through innovative graphic design. According to Geraldine Stutz, I. Miller's vice-president at the time, it was the start of an era when one "sold the sizzle and not the steak."11 I. Miller was not just selling shoes, they were selling a glamorous lifestyle. As with Tina S. Fredericks who hired Warhol for one of his first assignments in New York, Stutz had previously been the art director for Glamour magazine before becoming head of the retail division of I. Miller. Warhol worked for I. Miller until 1957 when the store was bought by Genesco, Inc.12

Geraldine Stutz:

"I. Miller was a beautiful old name, fashion name, in shoes. Probably the most recognizable name in shoes... and shoes are synonymous with I. Miller. That was a reputation that had been built by 'old' I. Miller, whose name was Israel, Ivan Israel... who was a theatrical shoe maker with enormous flair for promotion. He had built this name so that it was interchangeable with shoe fashion in this country... it was a successful business, and the name was magic, but it had got a little old-hat, a little passé... slightly over-the-hill. The campaign that Peter [Palazzo] designed and that Andy was the artist [for]... made an enormous difference in how the name 'I. Miller' was perceived by women. It made it contemporary, up-to-date."13

According to I. Miller's art director, Peter Palazzo, Warhol was hired after another illustrator, Bob Gill, left the company.14 Warhol did the drawings for the retail ads only which were mostly used for the Sunday edition of the New York Times, although they also occasionally appeared in the New York Herald Tribune and "rarely" in the New York News. The budget was limited and Warhol was contracted to do a designated amount of ads for a specific fee. Deadlines were generally 2 or 3 days to a week and sometimes even a day or a few hours.15 Warhol was, as Tina S. Fredericks previously characterized him, "an art director's dream come true."16 He was not precious about his work, making whatever changes were required in a short space of time.

The I. Miller ads were modern and innovative, featuring stylized versions of their shoes rather than facsimile reproductions. Repetition was sometimes employed to emphasize a product. One advertisement, proclaiming "the well-heeled look on fashion" featured Warhol's drawings of heels repeated across the ad, similar to the repetition he later employed in works such as 100 Cans and S & H Green Stamps. Sometimes the ads didn't include shoes at all. A Happy Easter advertisement featured a Warhol drawing of a single lily. An ad inviting the reader to visit the Shoe Salon at Henri Bendel featured roughly printed alternate black and white stripes - the Bendel trademark. Warhol's stripes were roughly drawn and the imperfections maintained in the ad.

SERENDIPITY 3

Warhol would usually present numerous different drawings to I. Miller and they would choose which ones to use. He sold the unused drawings at Serendipity 3, a cafe boutique which had opened in September 1954 at 234 East 58th Street by Stephen Bruce and Calvin Holt.17 In 1958 they would move to a larger premises at at 225 East 60th Street.

Andy Warhol and Stephen Bruce
at the second Serendipity 3 (1962)
(Photo: John Ardoin)

***

Warhol used blotted line to create his famous commercial illustrations
from the 1950’s such as his 25 Cats Name Sam, A is for Alphabet,
and I. Miller shoe illustrations.

***

Diamond Dust (1980) by Andy Warhol
Image: Galleria Rosini

Jameson’s essay on Late Capitalism contrasts Van Gogh’s shoe paintings with
Andy Warhol’s silkscreens of footwear. Vincent, you may remember, started
out to be a preacher, but Warhol’s first livelihood was commercial art: “In
the mid-’50s he became the chief illustrator for I. Miller Shoes, and in 1957
a shoe advertisement won him the Art Director’s Club Medal.” After marching
into the art world with Brillo Boxes and Campbell Soup cans, he returned to shoes
in his Diamond Dust series of 1980. Of course, he was fond of flower imagery, too.

[lofter1]

Window shopping at an I. Miller shop, circa 1930:

[lofter1]

In Times Square, a New Landmark:
I. Miller Building, With 4 Calder Sculptures

There's No Business Like Shoe Business

NY TIMES
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
July 4, 1999

On Broadway's newest landmark are four delightful sculptures by Alexander Calder.

Alexander Stirling Calder, that is; the father of the mobile artist and a respected sculptor himself, responsible for one of the statues of George Washington on the arch at Washington Square in Greenwich Village.
His work adorns the former I. Miller Building at Broadway and 46th Street -- ''The Show Folks Shoe Shop Dedicated To Beavty In Footwear,'' as the cornice still decrees -- which was designated a landmark Tuesday by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

''The wonderful 'shoe' building just makes you smile as you walk past,'' said the commission chairwoman, Jennifer J. Raab.

A self-described history buff, Dennis Riese, the chairman, president and chief executive of the Riese Organization, which owns the four-story structure, said: ''My building is one of the few remaining properties in Times Square that has any historical significance. I was really all in favor of preserving this facade.'' Mr. Riese plans to open a 325-seat T. G. I. Friday restaurant there in October.

In 1927, Calder pere was commissioned to produce four statues for the facade of a luxurious new store that Israel Miller was planning in Times Square. Miller, a Polish immigrant, had earned his reputation as a shoemaker for theatrical productions and then to the stars themselves.

Paying homage to the theater, Miller invited the public to vote for its favorite actresses. Their likenesses would be placed in gold-tiled niches above the shop windows of the building, designed by Louis H. Friedland.

And the winners were: for opera, Rosa Ponselle in the title role of ''Norma''; for movies, Mary Pickford in the title role of ''Little Lord Fauntleroy'' (1921); for musical comedy, Marilyn Miller in the title role of ''Sunny'' (1925) and for drama, Ethel Barrymore as Ophelia, a non-title role.

''A theater enthusiast from the age of 6, when he was taken to see Edwin Booth in Hamlet, Calder especially enjoyed the I. Miller project because it involved working with performers,'' said the landmarks designation report. The store opened in 1929, with Mayor Jimmy Walker and 3,000 others in attendance, and operated through the 1970's.

The Riese family bought the building in 1983. It is offering to lease or sell two enormous billboard structures on the Broadway side of the building. The landmarks designation does not require their removal.

Mr. Riese said he hoped to ''polish up the facade, polish up the statues and put nice architectural spotlights on them.'' Conceding that his father and uncle, Murray and Irving, had not paid much attention to maintaining the building in the past, he added: ''It survived by accident in those years. Now, it's going to survive by design.''

[lofter1]

... Miller invited the public to vote for its favorite actresses. Their likenesses would be placed in gold-tiled niches above the shop windows of the building, designed by Louis H. Friedland.

And the winners were: for opera, Rosa Ponselle in the title role of ''Norma''; for movies, Mary Pickford in the title role of ''Little Lord Fauntleroy'' (1921); for musical comedy, Marilyn Miller in the title role of ''Sunny'' (1925) and for drama, Ethel Barrymore as Ophelia, a non-title role.

Marilyn Miller in Sally
Herald Tribune December 29, 1929

Marilyn Miller (born Mary Ellen Reynolds) (September 1, 1898 – April 7, 1936) was one of the most popular Broadway musical stars of the 1920s and early 1930s. She was an accomplished tap dancer, singer and actress, but it was the combination of these talents that endeared her to audiences. On stage she usually played rags-to-riches Cinderella characters who lived happily ever after. By contrast her personal life was marked by tragedy and illness, ending in her untimely death at age 37.

... A decaying sculpture of Miller, in the title role of Sunny, can still be seen atop the old I. Miller
[no relation] Building on West 46th Street just off Broadway in Manhattan ...

Marilyn Miller as Sally on the I. Miller Building
(image reversed)

***

[stache]

Thank you lofter for taking a break from holiday tree trimming to share this with us :P. On a side note, several years ago someone at NY Times came across a lot of original Warhol artwork that consisted of shoe illustration ads.

[lofter1]

Thank you lofter for taking a break from holiday tree trimming to share this with us :P.

Speaking of holiday tree trimming, Grinches of all sorts should get thee around the corner from here to the Booth Theater on West 45th to see "The Seafarer", written and directed by Conor McPherson.

It's a fantastic production of a nasty and funny play, which was done last year in London to much acclaim.

Highly recommended. Particularly for those familiar with a drink or two.

[lofter1]

I'd like to nominate this thread as gayest of 2007 ...

There's a character or two in "The Seafarer" who might argue with you about that.

Supposedly the thread would have to be from County Cork to lay claim to that title .

[antinimby]

A Little Jewel Box of a Shoe Store



RAZZLE-DAZZLE Around 1910, great billboards, left, had sprouted from the brownstones at Broadway and
46th Street that would later be occupied by the I. Miller shoe store. The building is still used for display ads,
far left.


By CHRISTOPHER GRAY
Published: February 10, 2008

THE shoe designer Israel Miller built an unusual series of stores in the 1920s and 1930s, none more remarkable than his arresting little gem, rebuilt in 1926 at the northeast corner of Broadway and 46th Street.

His architect, Louis Friedland, sought to provide a retail store as dignified and elegant as Mr. Miller’s sophisticated footwear. But as it happened, raucous billboards held sway over the Broadway side. Only on 46th Street did Mr. Miller realize his sleek vision of limestone, marble, gold mosaic and four statues of famous actresses.

Born in Poland, Mr. Miller came to New York in the 1890s via Paris and soon specialized in bespoke shoes for dancers and actors. Branching out, he began a chain that grew to 16 stores by the time of his death in 1929.

About 1915, Mr. Miller leased store space in 1554 Broadway in an old brownstone just north of 46th Street.

By the 1910s, the stoops of this and the corner building at 1552 Broadway had already been removed and the ground floors rebuilt for stores. Great billboards promoting Gimbels and Crystal Domino Sugar sprouted from their former brownstone sobriety.

In 1926, Mr. Miller took over both buildings, using the upper floors for offices and rebuilding the exterior. His renovated store, by that time styled as I. Miller, opened there in November 1926.

A preliminary rendering located by Jack Goldstein, a preservationist, shows a prim, elegant structure that would not be out of place on Madison or even Fifth Avenue. The 46th Street side had five window bays separated by four sculpture niches.

The rendering shows the Broadway facade free of the huge signs that had taken over the area, with only a modernistic two-story-high storefront topped by an unobtrusive facade, a simple frieze and slight cornice. At the top was a modest oval sign with the name of the store.

Research by Gale Harris of the Landmarks Preservation Commission suggests that the chaste intentions for the Broadway facade were thwarted by a pre-existing billboard lease that could not be broken. This would explain the Jekyll-and-Hyde nature of the finished building in the earliest known photograph, from 1940: giant advertisements on Broadway, but a sophisticated little shop on 46th Street.

The facade was finished in polished marble and bronze set into limestone, completely plain except for softly, almost invisibly, deckled keystones. The third and fourth floors were merely of cast stone, but the four sculpture niches on the third floor are lined with glittery gold mosaics, and the parapet wall bore the inscription “The show folks’ shoe shop dedicated to beauty in footwear.’’

In October 1926, as the new store neared completion, an I. Miller advertisement in The New York Times read, “The smartest oxford adopts the newest wine-toned leathers,” which included “claret suede” and “burgundy crocodile,” the “perfect complement for your wine-toned costume!”

In September 1927, the store announced that the niches would be occupied by statues of women from the fields of drama, musical comedy, opera and motion pictures. Ethel Barrymore, representing drama, would be shown as Ophelia in “Hamlet”; Marilyn Miller (musical comedy) as Sunny (from the play of that name); Rosa Ponselle (opera) as Leonora in “La Forza del Destino”; and Mary Pickford (motion pictures) as Little Lord Fauntleroy.

The statues were designed by Alexander Stirling Calder, the father of Alexander Calder, who had studied under Thomas Eakins and at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He carved the four women in what appears to be stone; Miss Ponselle was ultimately depicted in the title role of “Norma.”



In 1926, four niches were added along 46th Street for statues of four prominent women in the arts.


Work was inexplicably delayed, and the unveiling took place only in October 1929, with Miss Ponselle, Miss Miller and other prominent theater people in attendance. Israel Miller did not attend — he died that August, leaving an estate exceeding $5 million.

The 1940 photograph shows that I. Miller, too, eventually joined the advertising bandwagon, with a billboard of its own on the roof that read, “I. Miller — Beautiful Shoes.” Although the I. Miller chain passed out of family hands, the store remained in operation there into the 1970s.

Today, Israel Miller’s building has descended to a sorry state, with brutish plastic signage in minimal box frames, broken marble trim and the limestone stained by dirt. Miss Barrymore gazes up, as if pleading for a hot shower.

The building received landmark designation in 1999. Riese Restaurants, which now occupies it, is working with the Manhattan architectural firm of Tobin & Parnes Design Enterprises on cleaning and repairs.

Robert Parnes, a principal in the firm, said that the work would begin this spring and that although the billboards would remain in front, plans call for polishing the side-street half of Israel Miller’s decorous gesture to beauty in a billboard jungle.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

[Fabrizio]

Note in the above photo, the second floor windows with the reverse curved corners.

Robert Stern uses a version of this at 15CPW:

http://observer.cast.advomatic.com/f...estate_web.jpg

You can see this window treatment on many buildings from the 1920's. I always associate it with up-scale buildings from the era..

Here it is at the River House:

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/UES/ues121d.jpg

Does anyone know if this architectural embellishment has a name? Origin?

[lofter1]

The Window Glossary seems to cover just about every term in the book ... except the one you mention

[lofter1]

If it were a simple molding it might be termed an Ovolo ...




The Cyma decorative molding seems to echo the reverse curve shape ...

Cyma — molding of double curvature, combining the convex ovolo and concave cavetto.
When the concave part is uppermost, it is called a cyma recta ...

This seems to be what has us stuck ...

When you understand moldings, you understand much about classical architecture --

the foundation of all traditional design.

Crowning Moldings -- Cyma Recta

[londonlawyer]

This is a beautiful little building. It's a shame that the signs won't be removed from the front.