CONTEMPORARY NY
New York Architecture Images- Midtown

444 MADISON BLDG

architect

Kohn, Vitola & Knight 

location

444 Madison Avenue (from E49th to E50th Streets) 

date

1931 

style

Art Deco

construction

44 floors, 453 feet (138m) high 

type

Office Building

 

 

images

 

 

notes

The 444 Madison belongs to a class of skyscrapers built in the twenties and the beginning of the following decade on narrow and long plots. As the Fred F. French Bldg (5th Avenue), the Hotel & Institute Mart Bldg, the Commerce Bldg or the Lefcourt-National Bldg, it was conceived as a tripartite design: a square block base ended by multiple setbacks arranged like a mountain or a complex pyramid, from which soars a parallelepipedic tower, flat as a slab, sometimes as a ledger. The 444 Madison has its east and west sides embellished by high recessed windows enframed by buttresses, and its north and south ones, with curious gable motifs. For a long time, this building housed the Newsweek headquarters.

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