1740 Broadway (formerly the MONY Building or Mutual of New York Building) is a 26-story building on the east side of Broadway, between 55th and 56th Streets, in the

Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan, serving as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Building, the ...

neighborhood of

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

.1740 Broadway, New York, NY – Vornado Realty Trust.
/ref> The building is owned by EQ Office and shares a

city block A city block, residential block, urban block, or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design. In a city with a grid system, the block is the smallest group of buildings that is surrounded by streets. City blocks are th ...

with the

Park Central Hotel The Park Central Hotel is a 25-story, 761-room hotel located southwest of Carnegie Hall at 870 7th Avenue (between West 55th and 56th Streets) in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was designed in the Renaissance Revival style and opened on ...

. Mutual of New York built the structure in 1950 for its corporate headquarters and hired

Shreve, Lamb and Harmon Shreve, Lamb, and Harmon, founded as Shreve & Lamb, was an architectural firm best known for designing the Empire State Building, the tallest building in the world at the time of its completion in 1931. The firm was prominent in the proliferatio ...

as architects. It left the building after being acquired by

AXA Axa S.A. is a French multinational insurance corporation headquartered in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. It also provides investment management and other financial services via its subsidiaries. As of 2024, it is the fourth largest financi ...

. The building was completely renovated in 2007. Blackstone bought the building in 2014 and took out a $200 million loan. In 2024, Yellowstone Real Estate bought the building's loan and considered converting the structure to residential use.

Signage on the facade

Its most famous attribute was once a

sign A sign is an object, quality, event, or entity whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else. A natural sign bears a causal relation to its object—for instance, thunder is a sign of storm, or me ...

at the top of its

façade A façade or facade (; ) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loanword from the French language, French (), which means "frontage" or "face". In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important asp ...

which advertised for Mutual of New York, the structure's original owner. The first version spelled out the entire name, with the first letter of each of the words in it (MONY) being red

neon lighting Neon lighting consists of brightly glowing, electrified glass tubes or bulbs that contain Rarefaction, rarefied neon or other gases. Neon lights are a type of cold cathode gas-discharge lamp, gas-discharge light. A neon tube is a sealed gla ...

which was twice the size of the rest. It was in this form that the sign served as both the inspiration for

Tommy James and the Shondells Tommy James and the Shondells is an American rock band formed in Niles, Michigan, in 1964. The band has had two No. 1 singles in the U.S.: " Hanky Panky" (1966), the band's only RIAA Certified Gold record, and "Crimson and Clover" (1969). The ...

' 1968

hit single A hit song, also known as a hit record, hit single, or simply hit, is a recorded song or instrumental that becomes broadly popular or well-known. Although ''hit song'' means any widely played or big-selling song, the specific term ''hit record'' ...

" Mony Mony" and as a motif in ''

Midnight Cowboy ''Midnight Cowboy'' is a 1969 American drama film directed by John Schlesinger, adapted by Waldo Salt from the 1965 novel by James Leo Herlihy. The film stars Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, with supporting roles played by Sylvia Miles, J ...

''. The subsequent version was the

corporate logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name that it represents, as in a ...

, which was the

insurance company Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to protect ...

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

with a

dollar sign The dollar sign, also known as the peso sign, is a currency symbol consisting of a Letter case, capital crossed with one or two vertical strokes ( or depending on typeface), used to indicate the unit of various currency, currencies around ...

inside the "O."Dunlap, David W. "No More MONY in the Midtown Skyline," ''City Room'' (''The New York Times'' local news blog), Monday, February 4, 2008.
/ref> The ''MONY'' sign was removed by Vornado in December 2007, and replaced with "1740" to reflect its

street address An address is a collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used to give the location of a building, apartment, or other structure or a plot of land, generally using political boundaries and street names as references, along ...

. The numerals, tall and in Futura typeface, are illuminated at night by

light-emitting diode A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (corre ...

The Weather Star

Perched on the roof is the Weather Star, a tower of lights topped with a star-shaped

weather beacon A weather beacon is a beacon that indicates the local weather forecast in a code of colored or flashing lights. Often, a short poem or jingle accompanies the code to make it easier to remember. The beacon is usually on the roof of a tall build ...

which was built by Artkraft Strauss. The star was green if the following day's

weather forecast Weather forecasting or weather prediction is the application of science and technology to predict the conditions of the atmosphere for a given location and time. People have attempted to predict the weather informally for thousands of years an ...

was

fair A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks. Fairs showcase a wide range of go ...

, orange for cloudy, flashing orange for rain, and flashing white for snow. The direction the lights on the tower moved depended on whether the temperatures were expected to rise or fall; absence of movement meant no change. The Weather Star is still operable, but is no longer used for meteorological forecasting purposes. An electronic digital board with four sides that has always shown the time and temperature is located at the base of the tower. 1740 Broadway Building in New York City

Tenants

L Brands Bath & Body Works, Inc. (formerly known as L Brands, Inc., Limited Brands, Inc. and The Limited, Inc.) is an American specialty retail company based in Columbus, Ohio. It owns Bath & Body Works, posted $7.4 billion in revenue in 2023, and was ...

Victoria’s Secret parent company expands at 1740 Broadway
/ref>

References

External links

1740broadway.com
* {{Broadway (Manhattan) Skyscraper office buildings in Manhattan Office buildings completed in 1950 Midtown Manhattan Broadway (Manhattan) 1950 establishments in New York City Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design basic silver certified buildings