330 West 42nd Street


McGraw-Hill Building
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
New York State Register of Historic Places
New York City Landmark


Interactive map of McGraw-Hill Building

330 West 42nd Street (also known as the McGraw-Hill Building and formerly as the GHI Building) is a 485-foot-tall (148 m), 33-story skyscraper in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. Designed by Raymond Hood and J. André Fouilhoux in a mixture of the International Style, Art Deco, and Art Moderne styles, the building was constructed from 1930 to 1931 and originally served as the headquarters of the McGraw-Hill Companies.

The building's massing, or shape, consists of numerous setbacks facing 41st and 42nd streets; these were included to comply with the 1916 Zoning Resolution. The facade is made of blue-green terracotta ceramic tile panels alternating with green metal-framed windows, with a strongly horizontal orientation. The facade was intended to blend in with the sky regardless of the atmospheric conditions. The entrance and the original lobby were decorated with light blue and dark green panels. Most of the upper stories had similar floor plans, except for their widths, which varied due to the setbacks on the facade. At the time of its completion, 330 West 42nd Street was controversial for the use of horizontal emphasis on its facade, which its contemporaries lacked. In subsequent decades, architectural critics recognized the building as an early example of the International Style.

McGraw-Hill Companies bought the land in early 1930 to replace smaller headquarters; the company originally took three-quarters of the space, renting out the other stories. As the surrounding neighborhood became more decrepit, McGraw-Hill moved in 1972 to 1221 Avenue of the Americas. The building subsequently became the headquarters of Group Health Insurance (GHI). Since then, ownership of 330 West 42nd Street has changed several times. Deco Towers, which has owned the building since 1994, began considering converting it into condominiums in 2018. Moed de Armas and Shannon completely renovated the building (including the lobby) in 2021, and the upper stories were converted into apartments starting in 2023. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) has designated 330 West 42nd Street as a city landmark, and the structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) as a National Historic Landmark.

Site

330 West 42nd Street is on the south side of 42nd Street, between Eighth and Ninth avenues, in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The land lot has an area of 27,975 square feet (2,600 m²; 0.64 acres) and a frontage of 130 feet (40 m) on 42nd Street, extending 197.5 feet (60.2 m) deep. It is on the same city block as The Orion to the west and part of the Port Authority Bus Terminal to the east; the building is also across from Holy Cross Church in the north and the remainder of the bus terminal to the south. The New York City Subway's 42nd Street–Port Authority Bus Terminal station and Eleven Times Square are on Eighth Avenue, less than one block east.

In the late 1920s, the surrounding area had low-rise residences. The building's site was occupied by five tenements of four to five stories on 42nd Street and six tenements of four stories on 41st Street. On the same city block, John A. Larkin acquired several lots totaling 47,500 square feet (4,410 m²) in 1926. Larkin had wanted to erect the Larkin Tower, or Larkin Building, a 110-story, 1,208-foot-tall (368 m) office skyscraper clad mainly in stone and steel, which would have been the world's tallest building. The floor area of the Larkin Tower's upper stories would have been so small as to make the building economically infeasible. Critics also disapproved of what was then an extreme height, leading to its cancellation in 1930. Part of the site then became the present 330 West 42nd Street. Many of the surrounding tenements had been converted into office buildings by the 1930s.

Architecture

The McGraw-Hill Building at 330 West 42nd Street was designed by Raymond Hood, Frederick Godley, and J. André Fouilhoux of the firm Hood, Godley, and Fouilhoux. The building has a mixture of International Style, Art Deco, and Art Moderne decorative elements. It was completed in 1931 as the headquarters of publisher McGraw-Hill Companies. The skyscraper measures 485 feet (148 m) tall, with 33 stories. The design of 330 West 42nd Street was evocative of those of New York City's earlier factory buildings. As Architectural Forum magazine said: "The requirements peculiar to a publishing business have formed the basis for the entire structure—in plan, section, and elevation." In an issue of the McGraw-Hill News in 1931, Hood wrote that "Economy and good working conditions were the three factors uppermost in mind" during the building's planning.

Form

The structure rises 35 stories, with setbacks to comply with the 1916 Zoning Resolution. The massing of the building contains setbacks at the 11th and 16th floors on both 41st and 42nd streets, as well as at the 7th floor on 41st Street. Each of these setbacks is only one bay deep. On the 32nd and 34th floors, the building contains additional setbacks.

Because the setbacks are only placed on the northern and southern elevations of the facade, they are only visible from the west and east. The northern and southern elevations appear to be a slab when viewed head-on. Both elevations are seven bays wide on all stories. Under the 1916 Zoning Resolution, setbacks were not required on the facades that abutted other land lots. The lack of setbacks on the western and eastern elevations made the building stand out as an industrial structure, even in the low-rise Hell's Kitchen neighborhood. Architectural writer Eric P. Nash likened the massing to an ocean liner.

Facade

The building was largely designed with a plain facade; the original ground level and the topmost stories are more elaborately decorated than the middle stories. Unlike Art Deco structures of the past, 330 West 42nd Street relied on color as a primary means of ornament. At the time of the building's construction, Hood had predicted that the future skyline of New York City would "consist of gaily colored buildings", though this did not come true until postmodern architecture became popular later in the 20th century.

Base

At ground level on 42nd Street, the building contains what were originally a pair of three-bay-wide glass storefronts, which were initially used by McGraw-Hill's bookstore and a bank. These curve inward to become the walls of the central entrance doorway with five doors recessed within the facade. The curved walls between the storefront and the recessed entrance contain gold- and silver-colored metal bands, alternating with dark-green and light-blue panels. The company newspaper McGraw-Hill News characterized the bands as "lacquered like the body of a motor car". Above the ground level is a set of light-blue panels with silver-colored metal bands. This entrance originally had Art Deco-style letters with the words mcgraw-hill. Within the doorway were steel doors topped by a glass transom.

Shaft

The exterior walls of the building are blue-green terracotta ceramic panels alternating with sash windows. Hood chose to use steel and terracotta rather than stone because, in his view, stone and brick tended to darken relatively quickly after a structure's completion. The terracotta was manufactured by the Federal Seaboard Terra Cotta Corporation. The terracotta panels between each story are laid in six glazed courses or layers, which gradually become lighter on higher stories. These panels were designed to give the appearance of shimmering, giving the facade a slightly different tint during different times of day. The terracotta panels were built to the minimum dimensions required by city building codes. At the time of 330 West 42nd Street's construction, terracotta was not commonly used in International Style structures, which frequently contained glass, steel, and concrete instead.

In designing the building, Hood considered several colors for the terracotta panels, including "Chinese red", orange, yellow, and gray. Ultimately, blue-green was selected for its "atmospheric quality", which was suitable regardless of the color of the sky on any given day. Hood referred to the color as blue, while McGraw-Hill referred to the color as green. McGraw-Hill executive James H. McGraw Jr., who had selected the color himself, was elsewhere for much of the building's construction in 1931, but was reportedly appalled at the color of the building when he returned. Members of the public nicknamed the structure the "Green Building", the "Green Kremlin", the "green giant", and the "green monster" due to its color. Eric Nash likened the color to the Ishtar Gate of Babylon. The blue-green color contrasted with the red and white of the Daily News Building and the black and gold of the American Radiator Building, both of which were also designed by Hood.

There are more than four thousand windows, each of which includes a frame painted apple green. The windows are grouped into sets of three or four, separated horizontally by dark metal spandrel panels, and were built to the maximum height allowed under city construction codes of the time. Due to restrictions on the amount of glass a facade was allowed to have, the windows were divided horizontally by metal bars. The vertical mullions between windows, as well as the tops of each window sash, were painted in vermillion. These painted bands were intended to give the impression that each group of windows was a single window opening.

The windows and terracotta panels were juxtaposed to emphasize the horizontal dimensions, a characteristic of the International Style. This was a great contrast to Art Deco facades, which were more vertically oriented. The only deviation from the facade's horizontal emphasis is on the eastern facade, which contains a pair of blue-green vertical strips at its center. After the structure's completion in 1931, Hood and McGraw-Hill compared the facade to an automobile, a common Art Deco symbol. In particular, Hood thought the facade had a "shimmery, satin finish" similar to that of an automobile.

Features

The McGraw-Hill Building contains 575,000 square feet (53,400 m²) of interior space. As designed, McGraw-Hill used about three-quarters of the total internal space. McGraw-Hill required about 350,000 square feet (33,000 m²) for office space, while another 200,000 square feet (19,000 m²) were rented out as office space.

Lobby

The original lobby covered about 2,650 square feet (246 m²) and led from the 42nd Street entrance to two elevator banks. The lobby's design was a continuation of the exterior, a common trend for Art Deco designs. It originally consisted of a passageway from the 42nd Street entrance, whose walls were decorated with similar dark-green and light-blue bands as the entranceway. Doorways led to the bookstore on the left (east) wall and the bank on the right (west) wall. The elevator lobby contained solid green enamel walls. The elevator doors were made of metal and decorated with bronze stripes, while floor-indicator markers hung above the doorways. Elevator staff wore green uniforms to correspond with the green baked-enamel interiors of each elevator cab.