The Manufacturers Trust Company Building, also known as 510 Fifth Avenue, is a commercial building at the southwest corner of West 43rd Street and Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. Opened in 1954, it is the first bank branch in the United States to be built in the International Style. Charles Evans Hughes III and Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) designed the building for the Manufacturers Trust Company. The structure has four full stories, a penthouse, and a basement. The facade is made largely of glass panes and aluminum mullions. The first story includes a door for the bank vault, designed by Henry Dreyfuss and visible from the street. The second story, recessed from the facade, has a luminous ceiling. The building's height and design were influenced by a lease restriction that prohibited the construction of a taller building on a portion of the site. A smaller penthouse rises above the fourth story.
The building was commissioned by Manufacturers Trust in 1944; the original plan was designed by Walker & Gillette and canceled in 1948. Walker & Poor was hired in 1950 to modify the original proposal but was replaced with consulting architect SOM. The building was instantly popular upon its opening, becoming one of Manufacturers Trust's busiest branches and a tourist attraction in itself. Manufacturers Trust's successor, Chase Bank, sold the building in 2000 to Tahl-Propp Equities. After Vornado Realty Trust bought the building in 2010, the Chase branch closed that year. SOM renovated 510 Fifth Avenue in 2012, converting it into a commercial structure, and Reuben Brothers acquired the property in 2023.
The building was praised for the design of its facade, ceiling lighting, and visible vault door, and the design inspired other bank buildings erected in the 1950s and 1960s. The building's facade was designated as an official landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) in 1997, and its interior was similarly designated in 2011.
Site 510 Fifth Avenue occupies the southwestern corner of Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, United States. The lot, with an area of , is rectangular, measuring along Fifth Avenue and along West 43rd Street. It sits between 500 Fifth Avenue immediately to the south, 520 Fifth Avenue and the Century Association Building to the north, and the Salmon Tower Building to the west. Because the building is surrounded by skyscrapers, it received only small amounts of sunlight daily when it was built.
The site was previously occupied by two structures: the Ziegler Building and a rowhouse at 508 Fifth Avenue. The Ziegler Building, an eight-story edifice, was built in 1900 upon the lots at 510–514 Fifth Avenue, at the southwest corner of 43rd Street. It contained offices for accountants, brokers, and lawyers, along with that of tobacconist Alfred Dunhill. 508 Fifth Avenue, originally a rowhouse, became a commercial structure in the early 20th century, housing tenants such as the Gotham Silk Hosiery Company and the candy store Huyler's.
Architecture
510 Fifth Avenue, built in the International Style as a bank for the Manufacturers Trust Company, was designed by Charles Evans Hughes III and Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). SOM had hosted an internal design competition, which Hughes had won. SOM senior architect Bunshaft and project coordinator William S. Brown were given responsibility for the project, and Hughes's involvement beyond the design competition is unclear. Patricia W. Swan led the design team in collaboration with Bunshaft and Roy O. Allen; Eleanor H. Le Maire was the interior designer, and Harry Bertoia was hired to create artwork for the interior.
The building is the first International Style bank branch in the United States. Earlier bank branches across the U.S. had been designed with similar modern features, but also retained more traditional designs. According to Horace C. Flanigan, the president of Manufacturers Trust, the design was intended to convey a "sense of stability and security" while using modern materials. A press release, issued when the branch opened in 1954, said that the design would advertise itself; Bunshaft compared the high-capacity layout to that of a store. Architectural Forum described the building as an example of "a dynamic new kind of prestige design for large financial institutions", through the "lavishness" of its architecture.
Form The Manufacturers Trust Company Building is five stories tall. The lower four stories occupy the entire lot; the penthouse is recessed from all sides except its western. The penthouse is T-shaped, with a mechanical section on its western side, and a narrower office section extending east. The building is tall, including the penthouse roof.
The building's height was affected by an agreement with Walter J. Salmon Sr., who had developed the adjacent 500 Fifth Avenue. Salmon had leased the site at 508 Fifth Avenue and used its air development rights to make his skyscraper larger. As such, any building there could not rise higher than tall or obstruct the adjacent skyscraper. At the site formerly occupied by 508 Fifth Avenue, the penthouse is set back from the lot line because it rises above the maximum height.
Facade
The Manufacturers Trust Company Building's facade is a curtain wall made largely of glass, incorporating of that material. The elevations on Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street are made predominantly of glass. The second-floor panes were the largest ever constructed for a building at that time, measuring and weighing each. The panes on the other three floors measure across. The glass measures thick and was manufactured by the Franklin Glass Company, based in Pennsylvania. According to architecture critic Lewis Mumford, the presence of surrounding skyscrapers meant that the building did not need colored panes to absorb sunlight; as such, the walls could be more transparent. The walls were tinted with a thin gold layer to reduce glare.
The glass panels are held in place with horizontal rails and vertical mullions of aluminum, which were intended to give the building a lightweight appearance. They protrude from the glass and divide the facade into bays measuring wide. There are dark wire-glass spandrels above each window on the second, third, and fourth floors. The joints, connecting different parts of the frame, were not covered by moldings and were built to precise specifications. Polished black granite strips are used at the building's pedestal, the western end of the 43rd Street elevation, and the southern end of the Fifth Avenue elevation. The granite slab on 43rd Street contains inscriptions of SOM's and the Fuller Company's names. The penthouse, clad with gray brick in the west and glass in the east, sits behind a recessed aluminum-and-glass parapet.
The original design had two entrances, both on 43rd Street: the main banking entrance to the east and the office entrance to the west. The banking entrance, measuring three bays wide, had no signage because SOM architects felt that the vault's presence indicated the building's purpose. As part of a 2010s renovation, two more entrances were built on Fifth Avenue.
Interior The Manufacturers Trust Company Building has a floor area of either . The western side has two elevators and two fire stairs. The first and second floors are connected by escalators and have an open plan. Since the 2010s, these stories have been reconfigured as retail space.
The interior is supported by eight columns, set back behind Fifth Avenue and behind 43rd Street. They are clad with white Vermont marble. The concrete floor slabs are cantilevered, extending outward from the columns without being supported at their edges, and are carried by steel and concrete beams. The third and fourth stories' slabs are concealed by the facade's spandrels; the second-story slab is recessed from the facade and is visible from outside. The floors have asphalt tile and cement finishes. Each story contains vinyl dropped ceilings, suspended approximately from the slabs above and divided into a grid with metal strips. The ceiling materials minimized the amount of light reflected off the large windows and diffuse light from cathode-ray tubes above. Utility systems are concealed above the ceiling, connecting with ducts hidden behind the south wall.
First floor
The first story originally contained tellers' booths, the vault, and quick-service banking facilities. The main banking space was relatively plain, with writing desks and a marble counter. A granite wall separated it from the vault to the south. To the west is an elevator lobby with steel doors, marble walls, and glass ceiling tiles.
The bank vault was placed on the first floor for convenience; the vault's walls were removed as part of the conversion to retail space, but its door remains in place. The steel door, measuring thick with a diameter of , was designed by Henry Dreyfuss of the Mosler Safe Company and is visible from the outside on Fifth Avenue. Although the door weighed , Architectural Record wrote that the door could "be swung by one finger" because its bolt wheel and hinge were "so delicately balanced". Behind the door was a steel grille that was shut during the daytime. The vault itself measured and had 6,000 safe deposit boxes. It had separate foundations from the rest of the building.
The first and second floors were originally connected by a pair of freestanding escalators paralleling the Fifth Avenue facade. The sides of the escalators were clad in backlit aluminum panels with straw-gold finishes; by the early 1990s, these had been replaced with silver-hued panels. Bertoia created an unnamed cloud-like artwork above the escalators, suspended from wires. The original escalators were replaced in the 2010s with a new pair running perpendicularly to Fifth Avenue.
Other stories
The second floor, also known as the mezzanine, spans and originally contained several bank departments and the senior officers' suites. The accounts department contained desks, each accommodating one officer. There was a banking counter made of ebony and marble, with an air duct concealed inside. There is a glass-and-aluminum divider in the gap between the floor slab and the facade. The southern wall has a large clock and was originally painted white; the western wall is made of black granite. Adjoining the western wall is a floating sculptural screen of 800 intersecting brass, copper, and nickel panels, designed by Bertoia. Known as Golden Arbor, the screen is long and tall, weighing .
The upper three floors were offices for the bank. The third floor contained loan officers' suites and a small reception room. The penthouse was divided into two parts: The western section had mechanical equipment, stairs, and elevators; the eastern section had a reception lounge, a kitchen, managers' and presidents' offices, and a directors' room. The directors' room, which had an expandable ebony table, could be converted into a dining room. There was also a garden above the fourth floor. An employees' lounge was situated in the basement.
History By the 1940s, the Manufacturers Trust Company had 67 bank branches and was growing rapidly. The bank branch at 513 Fifth Avenue, in Midtown Manhattan, was Manufacturers Trust's second-busiest location and had been overburdened for almost a decade. Manufacturers Trust began negotiations in 1941 with the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, which owned both the Ziegler Building and 508 Fifth Avenue, across the street from 513 Fifth Avenue. Three years later, Manufacturers Trust leased the Ziegler Building from Mutual Life and subleased 508 Fifth Avenue from Walter Salmon.
Planning and construction Walker & Gillette plans