The Rockefeller Apartments is a residential building at 17 West 54th Street and 24 West 55th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, United States. Designed by Wallace Harrison and J. André Fouilhoux in the International Style, the Rockefeller Apartments was constructed between 1935 and 1936. The complex was originally designed with 138 apartments.
The apartment complex, just north of the Museum of Modern Art, was built on land left over from the construction of Rockefeller Center. The Rockefeller Apartments consists of two towers, one facing north toward 55th Street and one facing south toward 54th Street. The land under the Rockefeller Apartments had been owned by the Rockefeller family, and the architects had been involved in designing Rockefeller Center. The two towers are 11 stories and are faced with brick, with partially protruding cylindrical bays. The interior was intended to allow fifteen percent more air and natural light compared to contemporary building regulations. The ground floor contains a location of Michael's Restaurant.
The Rockefeller family had secretly acquired the site by the 1930s, although this was not disclosed until the plans for the apartment complex were announced in November 1935. The family had intended to remodel existing houses on the site, though they instead decided to build an apartment complex to complement Rockefeller Center, connected via an ultimately unbuilt extension of Rockefeller Plaza. The complex was fully leased by the time residents moved to the apartments in October 1936. The building was sold to the Astor family in 1945 and Henry Goelet in 1953, and it became a cooperative apartment complex in 1954. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the complex as a city landmark in 1984.
Site The Rockefeller Apartments are in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The complex has an address of 17 West 54th Street to the south and 24 West 55th Street to the north, midblock between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. The land lot is rectangular and covers around , with a frontage of on either street and a depth of about . To the east, the Rockefeller Apartments abut the residences at 15, 13, 11, 7, and 5 West 54th Street, as well as the University Club of New York and The Peninsula New York hotel. Other nearby locations include the houses at 10, 12, 26, and 30 West 56th Street to the north; 712 Fifth Avenue and the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church to the northeast; 46 West 55th Street to the west; 53W53 to the southwest; the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) to the south; and Saint Thomas Church to the southeast.
Prior to the development of Rockefeller Apartments, the site was occupied by low-density residences. The nearby section of Fifth Avenue between 42nd Street and Central Park South (59th Street) was relatively undeveloped through the late 19th century. The surrounding area was once part of the common lands of the city of New York. The lots along Fifth Avenue were laid out in the late 18th century following the American Revolutionary War. Upscale residences were constructed around Fifth Avenue following the American Civil War. The two-block stretch of West and East 54th Street from Madison Avenue to Sixth Avenue, bisected by Fifth Avenue, was developed with the houses of prominent figures such as William Henry Moore, John R. Platt, and John D. Rockefeller Sr. The neighboring houses at 5–15 West 54th Street were developed between 1896 and 1900 as part of this row of upscale houses. John D. Rockefeller Jr., nicknamed "Junior", once occupied house number 13 before moving across the street to a now-demolished house at number 10.
Architecture The two towers comprising the Rockefeller Apartments were commissioned by Junior and his son, Nelson Rockefeller. They were designed in the International Style by Wallace Harrison and J. André Fouilhoux. The architects sought to design the apartment complex as an up-to-date model community. The general contractor was Barr, Irons & Lane Inc. Various contractors were hired for the windows, materials, elevators, floor and wall coverings, furnishings, hardware, electrical installation, plumbing, and heating and air conditioning.
Form and facade The complex's northern and southern towers are similar to one another. Both structures are eleven stories tall and symmetrically arranged with protruding glass-enclosed cylindrical "bows". The protruding bows measure deep by up to wide and extend to the sidewalk boundary on both ends. Both towers are separated from each other by a ground-floor garden. The lower nine floors of each tower occupy the same area as each other, but the tenth floor is set back on the west and east, and the eleventh floor is set back on all sides. According to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), the Rockefeller Apartments' twin-tower layout may have been inspired from the work of German architect Otto Haesler, but the apartments' setback penthouses differed from Haesler's flat roofs.
Both facades are made of tawny-colored brick laid within tawny mortar. The bricks used in the facade are thick and were made by the Hanley Company. The facades contain steel casement windows, which are placed flush with the facade. The windows inside the bows are curved. There are no major decorative elements other than these cylindrical bows. The curved bows were glazed for two-thirds of their circumference and may have been inspired by Haesler's design for the Georgsgarten Settlement. The window frames were made by the Detroit Steel Products Company and the glass was made by the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company.
On the southern tower facing 54th Street, the entrance is through two doors and contains a metal canopy that cantilevers from above the center of the first story. The address "17 West 54th Street" is printed on the sides of the canopy. Behind the flashing on each of the canopy's three sides are flanges, which contain sliding hooks that formerly supported canvas curtains. On either side of the 54th Street entrance are planters and offices. The 54th Street facade contains four cylindrical bows, two at either end. The outermost bows on either side rise to the 10th story, while the inner bows rise the entire 11-story height of the building. On each story, between the 10- and 11-story bows on either side, there is one pair of small casement windows. There are six large windows on the rest of the facade: one at the end of the facade on each story, outside the outermost bows, as well as four between the two innermost bows. These large openings each consist of three casement windows with their own transom windows above, as well as a single ventilation opening below the transom.
On the north tower facing 55th Street, the entrance contains a similar metal canopy and two doorways. There are storefronts on either side of the secondary entrance. On the rest of the facade, there are two cylindrical bows, one on either end, which rise only to the ninth story. There are large window openings on the extreme ends of the facade, outside each bow, as well as pairs of small casement windows on the opposite side of the bow, similar to the south tower's 54th Street facade. However, instead of having two additional bows, the entire center section of the 55th Street facade is projected from the rest of the facade. This projecting section contains four large window openings in the center, similar to those on 54th Street, which in turn are flanked by curved windows. The projecting section rises the full 11-story height of the facade.
Features The architects arranged the apartments so they were all illuminated well, even though the layout resulted in fewer units than in comparable buildings. As a result, the apartment towers do not occupy the full area of their lot. The plan allowed 15 percent more air and natural light than other apartments of the time.
Structural features The Rockefeller Apartments' internal structure contains a layer of freestanding gypsum, separated from the brick facade by a small air gap. The concrete partitions separating the different units were made by the Aerocrete Company. The cinder-concrete and terracotta partitions, demarcating bathrooms and shafts within the individual units, were made by the National Tile Company, while the 3-inch-thick gypsum and metal lath walls inside the individual apartments were manufactured by the Consolidated Expanded Metal Company. Post & McCord made the steel skeletal frame.
The roofs of either tower were to be used as playgrounds and sunroofs. Also included in the plans were a communal playroom and squash court. One-third of the plot was to be reserved for a public walkway, covered by glass during winters and left open during summers. A private community garden separates the two towers. The garden covers about . The garden varies between wide between the buildings, and it is 125 feet long, the same as the lot width. A tunnel runs under the garden between the two towers.
Interior spaces The first floor is designed largely as a public space. At the time of opening, the first floor had a drugstore and restaurant. According to plans, the drugstore and restaurant were placed within the northern tower, with the drugstore to the west of the entrance and the restaurant and attached kitchen to the east. The entire first floor in the southern tower, as well as the area behind the drugstore in the northern tower, was devoted to offices. The towers are separated by a garden, and a passage connects both entrances. Since 1989, the 55th Street restaurant space has been occupied by Michael's Restaurant.
The other floors are devoted entirely to apartments. According to Junior's original plans, there were to be 120 apartments of two to six rooms, or 60 in each structure including two duplex suites of six rooms and four maisonette apartments. This was subsequently revised upward to 138 apartments at the time of the building's opening. , the number of apartments had decreased to about 120. Each tower has two elevators and two staircases, one each corresponding to the west and east of the first-floor entrance hallway. The elevators are clustered near the center of each tower, while the stair halls are further west and east; these are connected by a single corridor on each floor. The floors of the corridors were laid in terrazzo with carpeting above it. The corridor walls were designed with marble and wood.
Apartments range from studios to two-bedroom units. In the southern tower, the typical story has six apartments, four facing the street and two facing the rear; the northern tower is similar. In the units facing the street, each apartment has one room that extends into the cylindrical bay. These bays are designed as dining rooms or solarium that could fit six to eight people. The bedrooms facing the streets were equipped with air filters and noise cancellation systems. Each apartment was also designed with its own log-burning fireplace. The floors of each apartment were largely made of oak, but the bathroom floors were made of tile and the kitchen floors were made of linoleum. Venetian blinds and window shades were also installed for each window. Penthouses are placed on the setbacks of each tower. Each penthouse level contains four apartments. Glass parapets shielded the living spaces on the upper stories.
History