488 MADISON AVENUE
(between 50th and 51st Streets)
(formerly the Look Building)
Developer: Percy & Harold D. Uris
Architect: Emery Roth & Sons
Erected: 1950
By Carter B. Horsley
This 23-story office building, shown above, was one of the first major midtown projects of the Uris family that went on to become one of the most dominant and prolific commercial developers in Manhattan after World War II and the bulk of its portfolio, not including this property, eventually was acquired by Olympia & York.
Often depicted as a definitive example of the "wedding-cake" zoning envelope then current in midtown, the building is probably the most attractive, though relatively modest, building built by the Urises and is also probably the most attractive white-brick building in the city, which suffers from a surfeit of utterly tasteless and design-less white-brick "monstrosities," mostly residential towers, that were the fashion in the 1950's and 1960's.
What, of course, makes this building attractive is its simplicity and its rounded corners that suggest the sleekness of the upper decks of an oceanliner without any Deconstructivist distractions. The banded fenestration, here seen to its best advantage, has the psychological effect of communality of interest rather than peepholes from a disparate rabbit warren of offices. It also is a very natural and very strong design statement.
The proportions here are quite good as the building is small and squat enough not to let the horizontal window patterns get dizzyingly off kilter. The 50th Street frontage is about twice as long as that on 51st Street.
Look Magazine, its initial major tenant, was a very popular competitor of Life Magazine and this prime location helped bolster its image, although it ultimately folded. Another major tenant, Esquire Magazine, unsuccessfully sued to change the name of the building.
The Urises were one of seven major building families that built most of midtown's new buildings in the first three decades after World War II. The other families were the Tishmans, the Fishers, the Minskoffs, the Kaufmans, the Rudins and the Dursts.
The building, which overlooks the rear of St. Patrick's Cathedral, is on the former site of Cathedral College.