Trump International Hotel and Tower (New York City)
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The Trump International Hotel and Tower, originally the Gulf and Western Building, is a
high-rise building A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdicti ...
at 15
Columbus Circle Columbus Circle is a traffic circle and heavily trafficked intersection in the New York City borough of Manhattan, located at the intersection of Eighth Avenue, Broadway, Central Park South ( West 59th Street), and Central Park West, at the ...
and 1
Central Park West Eighth Avenue is a major north–south avenue on the west side of Manhattan in New York City, carrying northbound traffic below 59th Street. It is one of the original avenues of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 to run the length of Manhattan, ...
on the
Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...
of
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, New York City. It was originally designed by Thomas E. Stanley as an office building and completed in 1970 as the headquarters of
Gulf and Western Industries Gulf and Western Industries, Inc. (stylized as Gulf+Western) was an American conglomerate. Originally, the company focused on manufacturing and resource extraction. Beginning in 1966, and continuing throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the company ...
. In the mid-1990s, a joint venture composed of the
General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable ene ...
Pension Fund, Galbreath Company, and developer
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
renovated the building into a hotel and residential tower. The renovation was designed by
Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the po ...
and
Costas Kondylis Costas Kondylis (1940 – August 18, 2018) was an American architect. He designed over 85 buildings in New York City, many of them for real-estate developer and later U.S. president Donald Trump, through his eponymous architectural firm. Kondylis ...
. The Trump International Hotel and Tower is tall and has contained 44 physical stories since it was built. The building originally had an aluminum-and-marble facade and was surrounded by a public plaza on
Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
and Central Park West. There was a theater and shops in the basement as well as a restaurant on the top floor. After the building was renovated, a glass facade was installed. The lower portion of the tower is used as a hotel, while the upper floor is a residential condominium. Planning for an office skyscraper on the site dates to 1965, when developers Hyman R. and Irving J. Shapiro planned to replace an existing two- or three-story building there. After the Shapiros' firm made two failed proposals for the site, Realty Equities Corporation took over development in 1967. Upon its completion, the building served for more than two decades. By the early 1990s, the tower was bankrupt and the GE/Galbreath/Trump joint venture had taken over the structure. Gulf and Western successor Paramount Communications occupied the building until 1995, after which it was renovated; the residences opened in 1996 and the hotel rooms opened in 1997. The hotel was renovated in 2010.


Site

The Trump International Hotel and Tower is at 1 Central Park West, along the northern side of
Columbus Circle Columbus Circle is a traffic circle and heavily trafficked intersection in the New York City borough of Manhattan, located at the intersection of Eighth Avenue, Broadway, Central Park South ( West 59th Street), and Central Park West, at the ...
, on the
Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...
of
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. It occupies a trapezoidal plot of land bounded by
Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
to the west, 61st Street to the north, and Central Park West to the east. The
land lot In real estate, a lot or plot is a tract or parcel of land owned or meant to be owned by some owner(s). A plot is essentially considered a parcel of real property in some countries or immovable property (meaning practically the same thing) in o ...
covers , with a
frontage Frontage is the boundary between a plot of land or a building and the road onto which the plot or building fronts. Frontage may also refer to the full length of this boundary. This length is considered especially important for certain types of ...
of on Central Park West and a depth of . The building is abutted by 15 Central Park West to the north,
Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...
to the east, and
Deutsche Bank Center Deutsche Bank Center (also One Columbus Circle and formerly Time Warner Center) is a mixed-use building on Columbus Circle in Manhattan, New York City. The building occupies the western side of Columbus Circle and straddles the border between ...
(formerly Time Warner Center) to the south. In addition, it is across Columbus Circle from 2 Columbus Circle and 240 Central Park South to the south. Entrances to the
New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October ...
's
59th Street–Columbus Circle station The 59th Street–Columbus Circle station is a New York City Subway station complex shared by the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line and the IND Eighth Avenue Line. It is the eighth-busiest station complex in the system. It is located at C ...
, served by the , are directly outside the building. The block had contained Durland's Riding Academy in the early 20th century, as well as a ball field. The lot was purchased in 1911 by magazine magnate
William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboya ...
. The plot was developed with the two-story American Circle Building, designed by Charles E. Birge, by 1914. The building, known as the American International Building, had a
superstructure A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships. Aboard ships and large boats On water craft, the superstruct ...
that could support the weight of a 30-story tower, though the additional stories were never built. Hearst had envisioned the creation of a large Midtown headquarters for his company near Columbus Circle, in the belief that the area would become the city's next large entertainment district. However, the proposal collapsed in the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
and only the
Hearst Magazine Building The Hearst Tower is a building at the southwest corner of 57th Street and Eighth Avenue, near Columbus Circle, in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is the world headquarters of media conglomerate Hearst Communications, housing many of i ...
, three blocks south, was built. Hearst's low-rise building on the north side of Columbus Circle remained standing until the 1960s, with a prominent
Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance bar, temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pembe ...
sign displaying time and temperature.


Architecture

The Trump International Hotel and Tower was originally the Gulf and Western Building, designed by Thomas E. Stanley and constructed in the late 1960s. It was built by
HRH Construction Royal Highness is a style used to address or refer to some members of royal families, usually princes or princesses. Monarchs and their consorts are usually styled ''Majesty''. When used as a direct form of address, spoken or written, it takes ...
. From 1995 to 1997,
Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the po ...
and
Costas Kondylis Costas Kondylis (1940 – August 18, 2018) was an American architect. He designed over 85 buildings in New York City, many of them for real-estate developer and later U.S. president Donald Trump, through his eponymous architectural firm. Kondylis ...
renovated the building into the current Trump International Hotel and Tower. Cantor Seinuk served as the structural engineers for the renovation. The 44-story building is tall and is designed with . This gives the building a
floor area ratio Floor area ratio (FAR) is the ratio of a building's total floor area (gross floor area) to the size of the piece of land upon which it is built. It is often used as one of the regulations in city planning along with the building-to-land ratio. The ...
(FAR) of 18. As apartment buildings were limited to a FAR of 12, Trump divided the tower into two separate structures for
zoning Zoning is a method of urban planning in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into areas called zones, each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for a si ...
purposes: a 17-story hotel at the base and a 28-story residential tower above. The tower is managed by
the Trump Organization The Trump Organization is a Conglomerate (company), group of about 500 business entities of which Donald Trump is the sole or principal owner. Around 250 of these entities use the Trump name. The organization was founded in 1927 by Donald Trum ...
, a company run by developer and later U.S. president
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
. The hotel units are owned by the
General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable ene ...
(GE) Pension Trust and Galbreath & Company, who partnered with Trump in the 1990s residential conversion. The Trump Organization owns one of the condominiums, the parking garage, the restaurant space, the room-service kitchens, and the bathrooms in the lobby. The building and hotel are managed by the Trump Organization. The building's board of directors is composed of six residential owners, two hotel owners, and the president of the Trump Organization (who is
Donald Trump Jr. Donald John Trump Jr. (born December 31, 1977) is an American political activist, businessman, author, and former television presenter. He is the eldest child of Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021, and his firs ...
).


Plaza

The Gulf and Western Building was initially surrounded by a public plaza slightly above the sidewalk. The Central Park West frontage was raised two steps above the sidewalk there. Originally, the northwest corner of the plot had a seating area surrounding a staircase to a basement theater, the Paramount Theater. The only aboveground portion of the theater was a cylinder in diameter, which had an LED sign, a ticket booth, and an entrance to the theater. A stair and escalators led from ground level to the theater. The stairs were illuminated by theatrical lighting and were somewhat similar to the staircases designed by Wallace Harrison for the Metropolitan Opera House. The portion of the plaza at the southern tip of the plot, facing Columbus Circle, is sunken below ground level. The circular plaza includes a large staircase leading to the New York City Subway's 59th Street–Columbus Circle station. There was also a building entrance in the sunken portion of the plaza. The sunken plaza had been added at the suggestion of by the Urban Design Group, which believed Broadway would be redeveloped significantly following the development of
Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 milli ...
several blocks north. The Columbus Circle globe, a 30-foot-wide silver
globe A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model glo ...
of the Earth by artist Kim Brandell, was installed in front of the building during its conversion into the Trump International Hotel and Tower. The globe is inspired by the Unisphere in
Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
, the New York City borough where Trump had grown up. According to Trump, the globe had been installed at the suggestion of a feng shui consultant he had hired. The globe was to include the words "Trump International" in letters, but the letters were not installed because city officials objected to the idea. When the globe was installed in 1997, nearby office workers complained that it was causing too much glare. The original plan had been to coat the globe in a golden surface, which would have reduced the glare, but Trump's feng shui consultants had recommended against it.


Facade

Thomas Stanley had intended the Gulf and Western Building to "provide a nice transition from Central Park", though the design was widely criticized upon the building's completion. The Gulf and Western Building's facade originally had steel columns, which were clad in marble from the plaza to the fourth story. Black granite was used in the
spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...
s above the second-story and third-story windows, while a marble
belt course A belt course, also called a string course or sill course, is a continuous row or layer of stones or brick set in a wall. Set in line with window sills, it helps to make the horizontal line of the sills visually more prominent. Set between the ...
ran above the fourth floor. The marble was meant to complement the
New York Coliseum The New York Coliseum was a convention center that stood at Columbus Circle in Manhattan, New York City, from 1956 to 2000. It was designed by architects Leon Levy and Lionel Levy in a modified International Style, and included both a low bui ...
(later demolished for the Deutsche Bank Center) and 2 Columbus Circle. On the fifth story and above, the facade was composed of prefabricated gray-glass windows with aluminum frames, as well as extruded vertical aluminum
mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid sup ...
s that were painted white. A red sign reading "G&W" was originally mounted atop the building. The facade panels had become misaligned by the early 1990s, which necessitated the
caulk Caulk or, less frequently, caulking is a material used to seal joints or seams against leakage in various structures and piping. The oldest form of caulk consisted of fibrous materials driven into the wedge-shaped seams between boards on ...
ing of loose facade panels, as well as the installation of mullions and large pins to secure the panels. When the building was renovated in the mid-1990s, the facade was re-clad in dark glass and steel. Trump had requested that glass be used, despite the fact that some of Johnson's more contemporary projects like
550 Madison Avenue 550 Madison Avenue (formerly known as the Sony Tower, Sony Plaza, and AT&T Building) is a postmodern skyscraper at Madison Avenue between 55th and 56th Streets in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Philip Johnson ...
used stone. Johnson had initially intended to model the new design on the Seagram Building, which he had helped design in the 1950s. As such, the windows between the columns were originally designed as flat windows, before Johnson considered designing the openings with projecting two-sided windows instead. The final design was similar to Johnson's One PPG Place in Pittsburgh. The redesigned facade has non-reflective, slightly projecting three-sided windows. The facade's steel is painted a gold color, a hue Trump used in several of his other projects. Johnson attributed the gold color to Trump's preference. Trump had originally wanted the facade to be bright gold, but he decided to use a matte finish instead after hiring a feng shui consultant, who told him to change it to reflect the clouds in the sky. Johnson had suggested removing the glass
spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...
s between floors to reduce costs, but Trump declined, saying the spandrels "sparkle like a diamond".


Structural features

The Gulf and Western Building was erected with a mechanical core at its center. The outer stories were reinforced with steel columns at intervals of . When the skyscraper was constructed, it would sway slightly during strong winds. According to structural engineer
Ysrael Seinuk Ysrael Abraham Seinuk (December 21, 1931 – September 14, 2010) was an engineer who designed the structure for many landmark skyscrapers in New York and around the world. He also taught structural engineering at New York's Cooper Union and wa ...
, the building would sway as much as laterally because of the lack of other tall buildings nearby to absorb the wind loads. Additionally, winds from the north would travel more quickly down Broadway than along Central Park West, due to the presence of a collection of tall apartment structures on Central Park West. This effectively turned the Gulf and Western Building into an
airfoil An airfoil (American English) or aerofoil (British English) is the cross-sectional shape of an object whose motion through a gas is capable of generating significant lift, such as a wing, a sail, or the blades of propeller, rotor, or turbin ...
, which would twist in high winds. As early as 1982, structural cracks prompted the building's owner to install a wind brace from ground level to the roof, measuring . When the building was renovated in the mid-1990s, Seinuk added two concrete-and-steel
shear wall In structural engineering, a shear wall is a vertical element of a system that is designed to resist in-plane lateral forces, typically wind and seismic loads. In many jurisdictions, the International Building Code and International Residential Co ...
s in a cruciform arrangement. Under the original renovation plans, diagonal steel trusses would have been installed in the mechanical core from the 1st to the 14th floors. The 15th and 16th stories, which were converted to mechanical stories, would have had double-height outrigger trusses connecting the core and perimeter, as well as a belt truss with inverted "V"s at the perimeter. On the upper stories, the number of columns in the periphery would have been doubled, reducing the space between columns to . This plan had been abandoned by 1995 in favor of a concrete wall through the building's center, rising to the 33rd floors.


Interior

The building has a total area of . The original layout of the building had of usable space with about on each floor. When the building was converted into a hotel and residences, the top story was renumbered as floor 52; it was marketed this way since the ceilings in buildings designed for office use, such as the Gulf and Western Building, are typically higher than ceilings in residential buildings. The floor numbering of the upper stories is offset by seven, so an apartment on floor 27 is actually on the 20th story. When residents buy a condominium, they sign a document that tells them about the floor-numbering discrepancy. According to Trump, the building was equivalent to a standard 60-story apartment structure, leading ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' to write: "Seen this way, measuring the converted tower at 52 floors was an act of altitudinal restraint."


Original offices

Shops and restaurants were planned on two basement levels below the plaza that surrounded the Gulf and Western Building. The Paramount Theater was in the basement underneath the northern end of the building. It had either 532 or 535 seats. When the theater opened in 1970 with its aboveground ticket booth, ''Architectural Forum'' said: "This theater is one of the handsomest non-buildings of recent years. We could use more of them." The Paramount Theater subsequently became the Loews Columbus Circle, which was closed in the mid-1990s. The office stories had ceiling heights of , which were retained in the renovation. The Gulf and Western Building originally used
asbestos Asbestos () is a naturally occurring fibrous silicate mineral. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous crystals, each fibre being composed of many microscopic "fibrils" that can be released into the atmosphere b ...
as insulation, a common material used in contemporary structures at the time. After the building's completion, asbestos in New York City buildings was outlawed and the city passed a law that required building renovations to include asbestos removal. The top floor contained a restaurant called Top of the Park. The restaurant had wallpaper and frosted-glass partitions with animal and plant decorations, decorated by Ellen Lehman McCluskey as an allusion to animals and plants in Central Park and the
Central Park Zoo The Central Park Zoo is a zoo located at the southeast corner of Central Park in New York City. It is part of an integrated system of four zoos and one aquarium managed by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). In conjunction with the Centra ...
. The space also had red walls and mirrors as decorations, which architectural critic Paul Goldberger described in 1976 as "perhaps the most conspicuous missed chance of recent years in terms of restaurant design". In 1988, Top of the Park was converted to a banquet space with a 200-person main dining room, as well as four smaller rooms fitting between 10 and 75 people.


Current hotel and condominiums

French chef
Jean-Georges Vongerichten Jean-Georges Vongerichten (; ; born in Alsace, France, on 16 March 1957) is a French chef.
was hired to operate
Jean-Georges Jean-Georges is a two-Michelin-star restaurant at 1 Central Park West (between West 60th Street and West 61st Street), on the lobby level of the Trump International Hotel and Tower, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City, named afte ...
, a ground-story restaurant at the Trump International Hotel and Tower. Jean-Georges, a
Michelin-starred The Michelin Guides ( ) are a series of guide books that have been published by the French tyre company Michelin since 1900. The Guide awards up to three Michelin stars for excellence to a select few establishments. The acquisition or loss of ...
restaurant, serves New French cuisine. The Jean-Georges restaurant space was designed by
Adam Tihany Adam D. Tihany (born Transylvania in 1948) is a hospitality designer based in New York. He founded multidisciplinary design firm Tihany Design in 1978, and is considered the originator of the title "restaurant designer". His firm has designed ho ...
, who arranged the space with both a cafe and a main dining room. Adjacent to it is Nougatine, a bar also operated by Vongerichten. Also within the hotel is a fitness center, a spa, as well as a business center and a 15-seat boardroom. The fitness center has an indoor pool measuring long. The lower portion of the tower, below the 17th story, is used for hotel rooms. There are 168 hotel units owned by GE and Galbreath. The units include suites as well as one-bedroom and two-bedroom units. Each unit has a kitchen and large closets; originally, the rooms were all equipped with electronics like a VCR,
CD player A CD player is an electronic device that plays audio compact discs, which are a digital optical disc data storage format. CD players were first sold to consumers in 1982. CDs typically contain recordings of audio material such as music or audio ...
,
fax machine Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer o ...
, and TV. Forty of the suites have two bedrooms; each of these has an entry foyer with a toilet, as well as two bathrooms and a living room. In addition, each hotel guest is allowed to use the "Trump Attaché" concierge service. A ''New York Times'' critic described the original decor as "not exactly homey" but "highly effective" for a one-night stay. After a renovation in 2010, each room was upgraded with an HDTV. There are 156 condominium residences on the upper 27 stories. Costas Kondylis designed the layout of the residences. When the renovation had been completed in 1996, there had been 166 condominiums, each of which had ceilings and windows. The living spaces cover up each. The condominium units vary in size and arrangement. For instance, one studio apartment has an open kitchen, as well as a long entrance gallery and large closet, while one of the one-bedroom units contains an enclosed kitchen. Some of the two- and three-bedroom units include a living/dining area, kitchen, and entrance gallery, while others include an entrance foyer, a living room/library, a dining alcove, and a kitchen. One four-bedroom unit on floor 48 has a separate foyer, living room, dining room, and library. Trump's penthouse, on floor 52 (the 44th story), had five bedrooms with marble-clad hallways and bathrooms. Trump was highly involved in selecting materials for the interior, choosing different woods for each of the three lobbies and picking the marble in the master bathrooms. He also picked finishes for the units' kitchens and bathrooms, spending $10,000 to $25,000 more per unit than he had at his earlier Trump Tower.


History

Columbus Circle was redeveloped in the late 1950s and the 1960s. The renewal of Columbus Circle had been spurred by the development of the New York Coliseum in 1956. The developments had included the construction of 2 Columbus Circle; renovation of storefronts at 240 Central Park South; and new buildings on Broadway between 59th and 68th Streets, just north of Columbus Circle.


Gulf and Western Building


Planning and construction

In March 1965, developers Hyman R. and Irving J. Shapiro of the company Forteyn announced their intention to develop a building at 1 Central Park West, the last undeveloped site directly adjacent to Columbus Circle. Harold M. Liebman Associates had designed a 45-story structure for the site, along with a raised plaza. The building would have contained , with on each floor, supported by the original foundations of the low-rise structure there. There would have been a glass-and-aluminum facade with a marble mechanical shaft facing west. The Coca-Cola sign of the old building was dismantled starting in August 1965. The Shapiros also relocated four existing tenants of 1 Central Park West into a nearby building they owned. Demolition of the site was completed in early 1966. That June, Forteyn announced that it had revised plans for the 45-story building. Rather than being an angular structure used for offices, the new plan would have offices only on its first nine stories and restaurant on the tenth story, with the address 15 Columbus Circle. The remaining stories would be cylindrical, with residences inside, and would carry the address 1 Central Park West. Architectural critic
Ada Louise Huxtable Ada Louise Huxtable (née Landman; March 14, 1921 – January 7, 2013) was an architecture critic and writer on architecture. Huxtable established architecture and urban design journalism in North America and raised the public's awareness of th ...
regarded the plans as "ludicrous", regarding it as a cross between bow-shaped structures like the
Phoenix Life Insurance Company Building The Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Building, locally called the "Boat Building", is a notable Modernist office building located on Constitution Plaza in Hartford, Connecticut. Designed by Max Abramovitz and completed in 1963, it is listed on the N ...
in
Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...
, and circular towers such as
Marina City Marina City is a mixed-use residential-commercial building complex in Chicago, Illinois, United States, North America, designed by architect Bertrand Goldberg. The multi-building complex opened between 1963 and 1967 and occupies almost an entir ...
in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
. According to Huxtable, "The reasoning here seems to be that ... New York can go two cities one better by building both, one on top of the other". Forteyn was unable to proceed on construction because it could not get financing for the project. The site was subsequently sold to the Investors Funding Corporation of New York, which in turn leased it to the Realty Equities Corporation. In October 1967,
Gulf and Western Industries Gulf and Western Industries, Inc. (stylized as Gulf+Western) was an American conglomerate. Originally, the company focused on manufacturing and resource extraction. Beginning in 1966, and continuing throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the company ...
officially announced it would develop the building at a cost of $20 million. Gulf and Western planned to take the top portion of the new building; it also planned to expand into the lower stories in the future. Realty Equities was to construct the building. A groundbreaking ceremony took place in March 1968. At that time, Gulf and Western increased its space requirements in the new building from 13 to 22 stories. Construction was almost completed by late 1969, but the elevators had not been installed. The elevator-installation workers went on strike in June 1969 and continued their strike for at least four months. As a result, other workers were forced to walk up to their respective floors, leading the city to halt work because workers would not be able to evacuate quickly in an emergency.


Office use

The building was completed in 1970, with the Paramount Theater opening in the basement that June. Cross & Brown were the leasing agents; the tower's first lessees included accounting firm Seidman and Seidman. During the early 1970s, an awning flew off during a high wind, and a man shot out windows in the Top of the Park restaurant, though no one was killed or seriously injured in either case. A rooftop antenna was installed at the Gulf and Western Building in 1975 to test the
Westar Westar was a fleet of geosynchronous communications satellites operating in the C band which were launched by Western Union from 1974 to 1984. There were seven Westar satellites in all, with five of them launched and operating under the Westar ...
satellite system for
satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna com ...
. The tower was also damaged in a February 1977 bombing committed by the Puerto Rican nationalist group
Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña The Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (English: ''Armed Forces of National Liberation'', FALN) was a Puerto Rican clandestine paramilitary organization that, through direct action, advocated independence for Puerto Rico. It carried out more ...
(FALN), but no one was killed or injured. The Gulf and Western Building was owned by billionaire businessman
John D. MacArthur John Donald MacArthur (March 6, 1897 – January 6, 1978) was an American insurance magnate, real estate investor and philanthropist who established the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, benefactor in the MacArthur Fellowships. E ...
at the time of his death in 1978. In 1980, the skyscraper's management was transferred from Louis Feil to
Cushman & Wakefield Cushman & Wakefield plc is a global commercial real estate services firm. The company's corporate headquarters is located in Chicago, Illinois. Cushman & Wakefield is among the world's largest commercial real estate services firms, with revenues ...
. At the time, the tower was owned by
Bankers Life Bankers Life is the primary subsidiary of CNO Financial Group, Inc. (itself formerly Conseco, Inc until 2010). The company was established in 1879 in Chicago, Illinois. CNO is a Fortune 1000 company (rank of 548 in 2015) whose subsidiaries provid ...
, which in turn was operated by the
MacArthur Foundation The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 50 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.0 billion and p ...
. By 1982, the Gulf and Western Building swayed so much in the wind that its core walls and stairwells had developed cracks and workers had complained of nausea. The swaying also disrupted elevator service. Some marble in the lower stories had cracked and was covered in plywood. This prompted Bankers Life to add a brace between the street and roof at a cost of more than $10 million. The MacArthur Foundation sold Bankers Life and its holdings in 1983 to Boston-based firm First Winthrop. The following year, the MacArthur Foundation sold the Gulf and Western Building and 17 other properties to First Winthrop as part of a transaction worth over $400 million. First Winthrop also received a $330 million mortgage from the
General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable ene ...
(GE) Pension Trust and sold a $336 million ownership stake. First Winthrop and GE tried to refinance the tower in the late 1980s. However, because the building had included asbestos in its construction, a large insurer would not give a loan, as the presence of asbestos was too risky for the insurer. The refinancing was canceled for an unrelated reason. Restaurant Associates announced in 1988 that it would convert the Top of the Park restaurant into a private banquet facility designed by
Adam Tihany Adam D. Tihany (born Transylvania in 1948) is a hospitality designer based in New York. He founded multidisciplinary design firm Tihany Design in 1978, and is considered the originator of the title "restaurant designer". His firm has designed ho ...
. The same year, the Gulf and Western Building's basement was flooded in a water main break. The building was renamed 15 Columbus Circle in January 1989 when Gulf and Western was renamed Paramount Communications. By the early 1990s, Paramount occupied 85 percent of the space, taking floors 2–5 and 13–44, while
BDO Seidman BDO USA, LLP is the United States member firm of BDO International, a global accounting network. The company is headquartered in Chicago. The firm adopted its current moniker in 1973, each letter corresponding to a surname of an original founder ...
occupied another 12 percent. 15 Columbus Circle continued to face both legal and structural issues. In late 1990, a structural engineer published a report about the facade on behalf of the building's owners. The engineer's report said that the badly misaligned facade panels could blow off during high winds and that several exterior columns had cracked. While a sidewalk scaffold had been erected around the building, the report said the panels could fall outside the area covered by the scaffold. The report recommended that "immediate remedial measures" be implemented, but no such measures were taken for over two years. In 1991, GE moved to foreclose on a mortgage on 15 Columbus Circle, and the building's legal owner filed for bankruptcy protection. Paramount was scheduled to relocate when its lease expired in April 1995, leaving the space 85 percent vacant. The cost of repairing the windows, removing asbestos, and fixing the structural issues made the building particularly difficult to market; by 1993, no one had made an offer for the structure.


Trump International Hotel and Tower

GE took title to the building in early 1993, choosing that option over foreclosing on First Winthrop's loan. That year, GE conducted a $2 million renovation to stabilize the facade. Concurrently, GE had hired real estate firm Galbreath Company to conduct a feasibility study for the building's future use. Galbreath recommended that 15 Columbus Circle be converted into a mixed-use property with both residential condominiums and offices.


Renovation

In March 1994, GE hired businessman and developer
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
, as well as Galbreath, to renovate the tower with residential units on the upper stories. The lower stories would be converted into either a hotel or offices. According to Galbreath's CEO Peter Ricker, Trump was hired because "he has been successful with high-rise condos like no one else has". The building's address would also be changed from 15 Columbus Circle to 1 Central Park West, a more upscale address. Trump considered
Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the po ...
,
Frank Gehry Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions. His works are considered ...
, and Robert A. M. Stern as possible architects for the conversion. Johnson was hired as the conversion architect in May 1994. Ricker said the building would have to be deconstructed so its steel frame could be repaired. Trump planned to have
truss A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assembl ...
es and columns installed throughout the building to make the tower rigid and stable. Renovation was chosen over demolition because 1 Central Park West already exceeded the maximum size of a residential building that could be built on the site, so a new building would have been ten to twelve stories shorter. To avoid having to demolish existing stories under zoning law, Trump split the building into permanent residential and short-term hotel components. Office spaces were not included because, according to Galbreath's executive managing director, "the rents were not high enough to support new office construction or rehabilitation". The renovation was to take two years and cost $230 million, with the building being rebranded as the Trump International Hotel and Tower. For the renovation, the joint venture received a $15.9 million tax abatement. The work could not begin until Paramount moved out. BDO Seidman moved out during July 1994, freeing up most of the space not occupied by Paramount. Just before the beginning of the renovation, Trump replaced the scaffolding that had surrounded 15 Columbus Circle for several years. The renovations began in June 1995, after Paramount moved out.
Barbara Corcoran Barbara Ann Corcoran (born March 10, 1949) is an American businesswoman, investor, syndicated columnist, and television personality. She founded The Corcoran Group, a real estate brokerage in New York City, which she sold to NRT for $66 million ...
and Louise Sunshine were hired as the sales and marketing directors. Corcoran predicted that many of the units would be purchased by Asian investors. By late 1995, foreign nationals made up half of the buyers for the condominium section. In February 1996,
Jean-Georges Vongerichten Jean-Georges Vongerichten (; ; born in Alsace, France, on 16 March 1957) is a French chef.
and
Bob Giraldi Bob Giraldi (born January 17, 1939) is an American film and television director, educator, and restaurateur. He is known for directing the film '' Dinner Rush'' (2000) and the music video for Michael Jackson's ''Beat It'' (1983). Giraldi has b ...
signed a lease for the ground-floor restaurant space at the Trump International Hotel and Tower.


Opening and early years

The residential units of Trump International Tower opened in April 1996, at which point sales commenced on the hotel units. Marketing brochures advertised the tower as having "the most important new address in the world". At the time, more than half of the residences had already been sold. This was in part due to what one real-estate agent described as the popularity of Trump's name among international buyers. Trump and his family decided to occupy the penthouse unit of 1 Central Park West. Trump operated a sales office for the tower on Central Park South, with a replica of the tower as well as an eight-minute promotional film. While ownership costs for the condos were initially projected to be , by 1997 many of the apartments had sold for . After divorcing his wife Marla Maples, Trump rented out the penthouse in 1998, and Italian producer
Vittorio Cecchi Gori Vittorio Cecchi Gori (; born 27 April 1942) is an Italian film producer and politician. He pleaded guilty to bankruptcy and was sentenced in February 2020 to 8 years and 5 months of imprisonment. Born in Florence, Italy he is the son of Mar ...
then purchased the unit. The Trump International Hotel was not yet open by December 1996, when Trump hosted a party for his New York City employees in the unfinished space. The hotel started accepting guests the following month. According to ''New York'' magazine, only one guest checked in on the first day of the hotel's operation. In response, a Trump spokesperson claimed management tried to dissuade too many guests from booking rooms there. Trump called the ''New York'' story "totally incorrect", saying the hotel "has the best location in New York City in the hottest hotel market ever". Though the Trump International Hotel was the first hotel to open around Columbus Circle in several decades, its completion spurred the construction of other nearby hotels like the Mandarin Oriental, New York, in the then-under-construction Time Warner Center. The tower's conversion, as a whole, also influenced the development of other projects around Columbus Circle and in the western portion of
Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildi ...
.


21st century

While Trump did not own the building, he received a large payment from GE Pension Trust for its development, as well as a portion of profits from the sale of the condos. Despite his name being on the building, he only operated the restaurant, stores, and rooftop. By 2005, the Trump International Hotel and Tower had the city's most expensive rental apartment, a four-bedroom unit offered at $55,000 per month. Among the units sold at the tower was an apartment that, in 2007, was sold for $18 million and resold on the same day for $21 million. In mid-2009, the tower's penthouse was sold at auction for $18 million as part of a foreclosure proceeding against Cecchi Gori; at the time, it was the largest foreclosure auction in Manhattan. A Russian family bought the penthouse but reneged after learning of the cost to renovate the apartment, and it was ultimately sold in late 2010 for $31 million. The
Trump family The family of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 and owner of The Trump Organization, is a prominent American family active in real estate, entertainment, business, and politics. Trump, his wife Melania, a ...
announced in November 2009 that it would renovate the 167 hotel rooms over the following year. The work was to be conducted in two phases: half of units would be renovated from January to April while the other half would be renovated from June to September. The renovation was completed in September 2010 at a cost of $30 million. The Jean-Georges restaurant was renovated the same year to designs by Thomas Juul-Hansen. Following that, Juul-Hansen designed a renovation for Nougatine in 2012. After the
2016 United States presidential election The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticke ...
, in which Trump was elected U.S. president, the hotel became the site of occasional
protests A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one. Protests can be thought of as acts of coopera ...
against his administration. By the late 2010s, residential units at the Trump International Tower were selling for over , less than units in newer skyscrapers on nearby Billionaires' Row such as 432 Park Avenue and One57. In June 2019, several condo owners demanded that the property be known simply by its address because the Trump name was diminishing the value of the building. By that August, Trump International's condominium board was considering rebranding the residential section as "One Central Park West" as part of a larger-scale renovation of the building. The hotel section would still carry the Trump name; according to ''The New York Times'', the Trump family considered the hotel's name "untouchable" since the Trump International Hotel in New York City had been the earliest such hotel in the Trump International chain. While the condo board ultimately voted to keep the "Trump International" name for the residences, they also agreed to renovate the marquee on the Central Park West side of the building. The sign on the marquee would be changed to display only the building's address, a compromise that Trump's son
Donald Trump Jr. Donald John Trump Jr. (born December 31, 1977) is an American political activist, businessman, author, and former television presenter. He is the eldest child of Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021, and his firs ...
had proposed.


Critical reception

When the Gulf and Western Building was completed, its design was much criticized. Mervyn Rothstein, in ''The New York Times'', wrote that many critics regarded the tower as "too tall, the wrong shape for its site and completely out of context". In 1977, architectural writer Paul Goldberger regarded all the buildings around Columbus Circle as having "no good architecture", writing of the Gulf and Western Building's "boredom" along with the Coliseum's "oppressiveness" and 2 Columbus Circle's "silliness". Robert A. M. Stern said the Gulf and Western Building "was at once a behemoth and a banality, and its contribution to the skyline was notable only as a memorial to lost opportunity". In a 1987 ''New York'' magazine poll of "more than 100 prominent New Yorkers", the Gulf and Western Building was one of the ten most disliked structures in New York City.
Herbert Muschamp Herbert Mitchell Muschamp (November 28, 1947 – October 2, 2007) was an American architecture critic. Early years Born in Philadelphia, Muschamp described his childhood home life as follows: "The living room was a secret. A forbidden zone. ...
wrote that the original design "neither holds the circle's perimeter edge nor respects the lower scale of the Central Park West buildings beyond". When the hotel and residential conversion was announced, a writer for ''Architecture'' magazine said the gilded design "overpowers the circle" and the statue of Christopher Columbus at its center. Writing for ''The New York Times'' in 1995, Muschamp said the design was an "undeniable improvement over the dull dark box that has loomed over this privileged location for the last 25 years", but he found issue with what he called "the symbolic stridency with which its golden skin proclaims the triumph of private enterprise in such a publicly conspicuous place". After writing that article, Muschamp said he got angry comments imploring him to "do something" about the design. Trump, who saw Muschamp's review as negative, occasionally called the critic to ask him to review the hotel again following its opening. Trump even met Muschamp at the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...
to discuss the review. Upon the renovation's completion, the ''New York Daily News'' said that, even with the redesign by Johnson, it had received only "mixed" reception. Martin Filler, writing for ''
The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...
'' in 2000, said the design went "from bad to worse", saying: "This meretricious face-lift was more in keeping with Trump's high-roller aesthetic than with the demands of decorum in high-profile public settings."


See also

*
List of buildings and structures on Broadway in Manhattan This list contains buildings and structures on Broadway in Manhattan, New York City. 1-599 (Battery Place - W. Houston Street) 600-1499 (W. Houston St. - Times Square) 1500-1800 (Times Square - Columbus Circle) North of Columbus Circle ...
* List of hotels in New York City


References


Notes


Citations


Sources

* *


External links

* * {{portal bar, Architecture, Hotels, New York City 1970 establishments in New York City 1996 establishments in New York City Broadway (Manhattan) Columbus Circle Condo hotels in the United States Condominiums and housing cooperatives in Manhattan Donald Trump real estate Eighth Avenue (Manhattan) Modernist architecture in New York City Office buildings completed in 1970 Privately owned public spaces Residential buildings completed in 1996 Residential skyscrapers in Manhattan Skyscraper hotels in Manhattan