The Bank of America Tower, also known as 1 Bryant Park, is a 55-story skyscraper in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, U.S. It is located at 1111 Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) between 42nd and 43rd Streets, diagonally opposite Bryant Park. The building was designed by Cookfox and Adamson Associates, and it was developed by the Durst Organization for Bank of America. With a height of , the Bank of America Tower is the ninth tallest building in New York City and the eleventh tallest building in the United States .

The Bank of America Tower has of office space, much of which is occupied by Bank of America. The building consists of a seven-story base that occupies the entire plot, above which rises the tower. Its facade is largely composed of a curtain wall made of insulated glass panels. The building's base incorporates the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, a New York City designated landmark, as well as several retail spaces and a pedestrian atrium. The Bank of America Tower received a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum green building certification upon its opening; however, because of its high energy use, the building was exceeding citywide emissions limits by the early 2020s.

Seymour Durst had acquired land on the site starting in the 1960s, with plans to develop a large building there, though he was unable to do so because of the presence of other property owners. His son Douglas Durst proposed a large office skyscraper at the beginning of the 21st century and continued to acquire land through 2003. After Bank of America was signed as an anchor tenant, work on the building started in 2004. Despite several incidents during construction, the building was completed in 2009 at a cost of $1 billion. In addition to Bank of America, the tower's tenants have included Marathon Asset Management, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, and Roundabout Theatre Company.

Site The Bank of America Tower is on the western side of Sixth Avenue (officially Avenue of the Americas) between 42nd Street and 43rd Street, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, U.S. While its legal address is 1111 Avenue of the Americas, it is known as 1 Bryant Park. The building's Bryant Park address arose because its namesake tenant Bank of America wanted the tower to be easily related with Bryant Park to the southeast. The government of New York City does not consider 1 Bryant Park to be a real address, as Bryant Park is not the name of a street, but Bank of America applied for 1 Bryant Park to be a "vanity address" under city planning law.

The land lot is rectangular and covers . The site has a frontage of on 42nd and 43rd Streets and a frontage of on Sixth Avenue. The building is surrounded by 149 stainless-steel bollards, placed on the sidewalks at intervals of . The Bank of America Tower, as well as 4 Times Square to the west, comprise the entire city block. Other nearby locations include the Town Hall theater and the Lambs Club to the north, The Knickerbocker Hotel to the southwest, Bush Tower and 1095 Avenue of the Americas to the south, and Bryant Park to the southeast. The site is directly bounded to the south and east by New York City Subway tunnels.

Previous buildings Historically, the area had been composed of hills and meadows, and a stream ran on the western boundary of the site. Prior to the Bank of America Tower's construction, the site was occupied by several structures. The neighborhood had been occupied by row houses with backyards in the late 19th century, which were demolished for commercial development in the early 20th century. Many of the former structures on the site were stores, restaurants, and theaters.

There was a pair of two-story buildings at 1111 Avenue of the Americas and 105–109 West 42nd Street just before the tower's development. A 20- or 22-story commercial building, the Remington Building, stood at 113 West 42nd Street. The Hotel Diplomat, a 13-story structure at 108 West 43rd Street that had operated since 1911, occupied the northern part of the site. The block also had a Masonic Temple, as well as the eight-story Roger Baldwin Building at 132 West 43rd Street, once headquarters of the American Civil Liberties Union. The northern side of the Bank of America Tower incorporates the Stephen Sondheim Theatre (originally Henry Miller's Theatre), which was rebuilt when the tower was erected.

Subway entrance

Immediately outside the Bank of America Tower is an entrance to the New York City Subway's 42nd Street–Bryant Park/Fifth Avenue station, which is served by the . The entrance design was intended to harmonize with the lobby adjacent to it. The subway entrance consists of a glass enclosure with a pair of staircases, which lead north and south from Sixth Avenue to the station's underground mezzanine. The subway entrance has an elevator as well. On the subway entrance's glass roof is a BIPV installation, which produces some electricity for the structure.

As part of the building's construction, a passageway was built under the north side of 42nd Street connecting the Bryant Park complex with the Times Square–42nd Street station. However, the passageway remained closed even when the building was completed. As part of the reconstruction of 42nd Street Shuttle from 2019 to 2022, the passageway would have been opened and a new entrance would be built on the north side of 42nd Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue. Because the Durst Organization did not want to pay for an underpass between the new shuttle platform and the Bank of America Tower's passageway, a parallel ramp between the two stations was built instead, leaving the Bank of America Tower's passageway unused.

Architecture The Bank of America Tower was developed by Douglas Durst of the Durst Organization and designed by Cookfox Architects for Bank of America. Adamson Associates served as the executive designer. Severud Associates was the structural engineer, Jaros, Baum & Bolles was the MEP engineer, and Tishman Realty & Construction was the general contractor. Numerous other consultants, engineers, and contractors were involved in the building's design and construction.

The building contains of office space. It has three basements and has 55 above-ground stories. The Bank of America Tower has an architectural spire at its south end, rising ; the roof height at that location is . At the north end, the roof is high, and a wind turbine brings the total height to . The height to the architectural spire makes the Bank of America Tower the eighth tallest building in New York City and the tenth tallest building in the United States .

The Bank of America Tower was the first commercial skyscraper in the U.S. specifically designed to attain a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification, the highest green building certification available from LEED. The Bank of America Tower was imitated worldwide as a model for sustainable architecture in skyscrapers. The energy-efficiency features increased the building's construction cost by 6.5 percent, but they were projected to save $3 million a year in annual energy costs and increase productivity by another $7 million annually. When the building opened, the effectiveness of the environmental features was lessened by its high occupancy rates. As a result, the building was given a "C" grade (on an "A" through "F" scale) on a citywide energy-efficiency ranking system in 2018. Another consequence was that the building risked being penalized for excessive carbon emissions under a 2019 law. Bloomberg reported in 2022 that the building could exceed city emissions limits by an estimated 50 percent by 2024, resulting in an annual fine of $2.4 million.

Form and facade

The building contains a seven- and eight-story base that occupies the entire plot. The tower rises above the eastern portion of the plot, which covers . The facade contains several diagonal planes, which are designed to reduce wind resistance compared to a rectangular massing. Serge Appel of Cookfox said the tower's massing would conform with Bank of America's wish for "an iconic form" and would maximize views of other buildings. One section of the building has a roof garden covering . The building's three basement levels reach as deep as below grade.

At the lowest stories, the Bank of America Tower's floor plan resembles a rectangle, though the northeast and southwest corners protrude by about . The southeast corner, facing Bryant Park, is a right angle at the lowest one-third of the building. However, it is a wedge-shaped chamfer on the upper two-thirds of the tower, giving each successive story a different shape. During the planning process, the architects considered orienting the Bank of America Tower diagonally so it faced Bryant Park, but they ultimately decided to keep the base aligned with the Manhattan street grid as an "urban gesture". The upper stories are aligned diagonally to the street grid because of the sloped facades on upper stories.

Tower facade The facade of the Bank of America Tower is, for the most part, composed of a glass curtain wall with fritted and transparent panels. The curtain wall contains 8,644 panels and cover over ; it includes vertical and sloped sections at the base, as well as double walls and screen walls in the upper stories. Each story has full-height panels with insulated glazing. The glass panels at the base are set between horizontal and vertical mullions. The tops and bottoms of each panel are fritted, but the middle of the panel is transparent to allow views of the surroundings. On upper stories, the mullions between windows appear to be vertical, but they run in a slight diagonal to accommodate the sloped facades.

The curtain wall was partially inspired by the New York Crystal Palace, a 19th-century exhibition building that occupied what is now Bryant Park. Inspiration was also derived from the Durst family's collection of crystals. According to Richard Cook of Cookfox, the curtain wall was meant to express the idea that "the ideal of modern banking is open, clear, transparent", and the angled panels were intended to relate the building to Bryant Park.

The Bank of America Tower's curtain wall was specifically designed to meet LEED standards, allowing natural light into the lobby and offices during the daytime. Above the main entrance on 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue is an installation of building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPVs), which produce small amounts of energy for the building. Some spandrels on the eastern facade also contain BIPVs. The southeast-corner chamfer is designed with a double-glazed wall, which deflects sunlight during the summer. The double-insulated curtain wall panels cover . The curtain wall allows 73 percent of visible light to enter but deflects all ultraviolet rays. The curtain wall design keeps heat out of the building during summer and keeps heat inside during winter. Above the main entrance, there is an oxidized-bamboo canopy. Extending outward from the lobby, the entrance canopy continues indoors as the ceiling of the lobby.

Stephen Sondheim Theatre