New York 1960: PAN AM BUILDING

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

PAN AM BUILDING

PARK AVENUE and 38th STREET

"World's largest commercial office building, 59 floors, 1/2 acre roof-top heliport, 808 ft. high, seventh tallest office structure in the world. 65 elevators and 18 electric stairways include the world's fastest high rise bank of elevators moving at the rate of 1,700 ft. per minute - four 4-foot wide moving stairs leading into building from main concourse of Grand Central Terminal, capable of handling 30,000 persons per hour."

Looking North - Grand Central Terminal in foreground

Looking South-East - Chrysler Building in Background

Looking South-East - Union Carbide Building in Right Foreground

Grand Central Terminal before construction of Pan Am Building

No comments:

Post a Comment

Mission Statement

NEW YORK 1960 is a window into the architecture and urban landscape of New York City from the end of WWII to the Bicentennial as seen through "chrome" postcards from the period. These mid-century cards were printed using a new "chromolithic" process, yielding bright, saturated colors more like a color photograph than any previous postcard printing process. The images and their descriptions provide the contemporary viewer an opportunity to understand how the city saw itself during a time of sweeping changes ushered in by post-war prosperity. They also depict how corporations and cultural institutions embraced and distilled the Modernist aesthetic. Corporations used it in the design of skyscrapers to project an image of power and progress. Cultural institutions employed it to appeal to a younger or progressive demographic. Many buildings have become icons of the era for better or worse.