The Fuller Building is a skyscraper at 57th Street and Madison Avenue in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Walker & Gillette, it was erected between 1928 and 1929. The building is named for its original main occupant, the Fuller Construction Company, which moved from the Flatiron Building.
The 40-story building is designed in the Art Deco style and contains numerous setbacks as mandated by the 1916 Zoning Resolution. The facade of the lowest six stories are clad with black granite and contain large display windows for stores, as well as large windows for art galleries. The triple-height main entrance is decorated with architectural sculpture by Elie Nadelman. The remaining stories are largely designed with light cast stone and smaller windows. The interior has richly decorated vestibules and lobby featuring marble walls, bronze detailing, and mosaic floors.
The Fuller Building was constructed as part of the artistic hub that occupied East 57th Street during the early 20th century. At the time of its completion, the Fuller Building housed several art galleries with the address 41 East 57th Street, as well as offices at the address 595 Madison Avenue. It was purchased several times over the years before being acquired in 1999 by Vornado Realty Trust, its owner . The Fuller Building and its interior became New York City designated landmarks in 1986.
Site The Fuller Building is in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, on the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 57th Street. The largely rectangular land lot covers approximately , with a frontage of on Madison Avenue and parallel to 57th Street. The Four Seasons Hotel New York is on the same block to the east. Other nearby buildings include 432 Park Avenue to the south; 590 Madison Avenue to the southwest; LVMH Tower and the L. P. Hollander Company Building to the west; the General Motors Building to the northwest; and the Ritz Tower to the east.
Before the Fuller Building was developed, the site was occupied by the Madison Avenue Dutch Reformed Church, constructed in 1870. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, East 57th Street largely contained homes and structures built for the arts. The Central Presbyterian Church bought the Madison Avenue Church structure in 1915. Many of the residential structures on 57th Street were replaced with offices, shops, and art galleries by the 1920s. In April 1928, the Charles of London Corporation was planning to buy the Central Church building, with plans to redevelop the site with a 30-story skyscraper. Ultimately, the Fuller Construction Company purchased the Central Church building, and the Central Church moved to Park Avenue.
Architecture The Fuller Building was designed by Walker & Gillette in the Art Deco style, although in a very conservative fashion. The building is tall and contains 40 stories. The building's design contains relatively little ornament, as much of the design emphasis is on its shape, as well as the contrast of granite and stone on the facade. The Fuller Building contains numerous setbacks to comply with the 1916 Zoning Resolution, and the exterior contains various textures of stone to provide vertical and horizontal emphases on different parts of the facade. The exterior uses Rockwood stone and black Swedish granite. The interior uses gray Tennessee marble, black Belgian marble, golden veined Formosa marble, and Bottocino marble.
Christopher Gray wrote in The New York Times in 1995 that the building was "a jazz-age testament to the emerging commercial chic of 57th Street". The AIA Guide to New York City called it "the Brooks Brothers of Art Deco: black, gray and white."
Form The six-story base occupies the entire lot, and the setbacks are largely restricted to the fifteen stories above the base. The limestone contains rounded corners at the setbacks, although these corners are generally too small to see from the street. The overall form was intended to be visualized in several vertical sections: a large base, a mass with setbacks, a narrow tower, and a crown. The base was intended for stores and galleries; the set-back midsection was for art dealers; and the narrow tower was for businesses. These differing uses were to be reflected by the differing materials used on the facade, as well as the setbacks themselves. Because of the proximity of other tall buildings, Paul Goldberger wrote for the Times in 1978 that "almost no one ever sees it" as having several vertical sections.
The outer sections of the southern elevation on 57th Street, and the southern section of the western elevation on Madison Avenue, contain setbacks on the 11th, 13th, and 15th floors, with black stone highlights at the tops of the setbacks. The eastern elevation has setbacks at the 10th, 13th, and 15th floors, which blend with the setbacks on the eastern section of the 57th Street elevation. The northern elevation contains no setbacks.
At the 16th through 21st stories on 57th Street, there are setbacks at every floor except the 18th. Along this elevation of the facade, the center two vertical bays project slightly from the 17th to 20th stories. Above the 20th story, the building rises as a continuous rectangular tower. At the 38th and 40th stories are setbacks with black stone bands. The roof of the building, above the 40th floor, also contains some setbacks for mechanical equipment.
Facade
Base
The lowest six stories of the Fuller Building are clad in black Swedish granite. Along the southern side, facing 57th Street, the facade consists of eight bays. The western side, on Madison Avenue, consists of four bays. There are two entrances at the base: the main entrance on 57th Street and the secondary one on Madison Avenue. In general, the Fuller Building's art galleries have tended to use the address 41 East 57th Street, while the offices have used the address 595 Madison Avenue.
The main entrance portal is in the fourth bay from west on 57th Street; it is three stories high and is flanked by granite-and-stone pilasters. There are four brass-framed glass doors at ground level, slightly recessed from the street. In front of and above the doors is a glass panel, which hangs from a bronze lintel with diamonds. At the center of the lintel is a glass-and-brass light fixture topped by an eagle. The second and third floors of the main entrance portal contain a grid of square windows framed by metal mullions. Atop the third story are stone-on-granite letters reading . Above this sign, at the fourth story, is a limestone sculptural group designed by Elie Nadelman. The sculptural group represents two construction workers flanking a clock, behind which is a carving of a skyline.
The secondary entrance is a single-story opening in the northernmost bay on Madison Avenue. The Madison Avenue entrance contains a brass service elevator door on the left and a brass-framed glass double door on the right. Atop these doors, but beneath the second story, is a sign with the stone letters . The rest of the base is designed similarly on both street facades. The ground level generally contains storefronts separated by vertical granite piers, which extend through the second to sixth floors. The second through fifth floor windows are separated horizontally by bronze spandrel panels with wave-and-inverted ziggurat designs. The fifth and sixth floors are separated horizontally by a granite band with a Greek key motif made of limestone. The window openings on each floor consist of large glass panes surrounded by smaller panes.
Upper stories At the seventh floor, the design of the facade changes to a light-colored limestone cladding with black granite accenting. Centered above the 57th Street entrance, on the seventh through 16th floors, are five bays, each with four windows per floor, which correspond to openings at the base. Within these bays, each story is separated by horizontal bands that project slightly from the windows. Along 57th Street, the outer bays on the seventh through 16th floors consist of single-width windows with limestone piers. The center two bays on Madison Avenue have similar horizontal bands and four-window-wide bays as on 57th Street, while the outer bays contain narrower windows. On the first 17 floors, the northern and eastern facades are clad with two-tone brick and are largely unornamented. On the eastern facade, there are horizontal and vertical yellow brick bands contrasting with a darker background.
Above the 17th story, all of the facades contain single-width windows with limestone piers. Except for the northern facade, the 18th through 21st stories are clad with limestone on all sides. At the lintels above the 20th-story windows, there are black-stone geometric designs, and the piers between each bay are capped by stone slabs. The northern facade on these stories contains intermittent limestone cladding with brick.
Above the 20th story, the west, south, and east facades are designed identically and are each six bays wide. On these facades, the two center bays are flanked by wide piers and separated by a narrow pier, with recessed spandrels separating the windows on each floor. Within the four outer bays on each facade, the windows on different stories are separated by horizontal bands. In the center bays from the 36th to 39th stories, the piers contain horizontal bands. The spandrels beneath the 36th and 37th floors contain black vertical lines, and there are balconies on the 38th floor. At the 39th floor are black-and-white sunburst motifs flanking a round window in the center bays. The roof above the 40th floor contains friezes with black-and-white triangles and zigzag patterns. The northern facade is similar but has no windows in the center two bays. Additionally, there is no balcony on the 38th floor, and the 39th and 40th floors have dark geometric patterns without any windows.
Features The Fuller Building had a rentable area of about when it was completed. According to the New York City Department of City Planning and building owner Vornado Realty Trust, the building has a gross floor area of approximately . The third through 19th floors typically contain an area of , while the 20th through 40th stories are much smaller, with an area of . Ceiling heights range from , while the floors can carry loads of .
The building is constructed with a steel superstructure. The steel structure contains wind bracing to minimize movement due to wind. When the Fuller Building was completed, it contained a then-novel vertical fire alarm system, with direct lines to the New York City Fire Department at every other floor, as well as tanks and standpipes throughout the height of the building.
Lobby The lobby is T-shaped in plan, with marble, bronze, and mosaic decorations. The main entrance hall leads north from 57th Street to the elevator lobby, which leads east from the Madison Avenue entrance. Just inside either entrance are small vestibules with doors leading to the main lobby. The 57th Street vestibule's wall consists of light tan marble, with horizontal black bands on the lowest sections of the walls. One light marble panel on each wall is flanked by two narrower, darker marble pilasters, which are flush with the rest of the wall. At the top of each dark marble panel are fret designs intended to resemble the capitals of a column. The floors contain stylized mosaics inlaid with the letter "F", as well as decorative borders. The Madison Avenue vestibule is similar in design, except it has three doors to the lobby, whereas the 57th Street vestibule has four. Additionally, a stair to the basement is on the northern side of the Madison Avenue lobby.