VINTAGE MANHATTAN SKYLINE

Midtown Manhattan skyline looking northwest from the top of Metropolitan Life tower. Summer, 1952. 

The Empire State Building (Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, 1931) are on foreground, center, dominating the skyline. 500 Fifth Avenue tower (Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, 1931) and Rockefeller Center’s R.C.A. Building (Associated Architects, 1933) can be seen at background, right.

Photo: Manhattan Post Card, Co./Dexter Press.Inc.

Don’t miss the new photogallery (in Spanish) about the evollution of the Manhattan skyline during 1952 (Part One) in the blog “Historia de los Rascacielos de Nueva York”.

https://bit.ly/2W9K19f

Midtown Manhattan skyscrapers. View looking northwest from the top of Lincoln Building. Summer, 1955.

The Rockefeller Center complex dominated by 70-story RCA Building are at background, left. Central Park are visible at distance.

Photo: Acacia Card Company, New York, N.Y.

Aerial view looking southwest of Midtown Manhattan. Summer, 1955.

The Empire State (Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, 1931) and Chrysler (William Van Allen, 1930) buildings are visible at center, above. The skyscraper under construction that be visible between Empire State and Chrysler are the new Socony-Mobil Building (Harrison & Abramovitz, 1956). The United Nations Headquarters (Wallace K. Harrison, 1948-1952) are at left, foreground. Rockefeller Center complex (Associated Architects, 1931-1940) are at right, above.

Photo: Skyviews Aerial Surveys.

Source: Wallock, Leonard. "New York Culture Capital of the World 1940-1965". New York, Rizzoli, 1988.

Aerial view looking south of Midtown Manhattan. Autumn, 1955.

Photo: Fairchild Aerial Surveys

Source: “Las Maravillas del Mundo”. Spain, Codex, 1965.

Night view looking southeast of Midtown Manhattan skyline with Rockefeller Center complex, on foreground and the Empire State Bulding at background, right. Late 1949.

Photo: Robert Bagby.

Source: Colourpicture Publishing, Inc.

The 28-story Sinclair Oil Building. 600 Fifth Avenue northwest corner with 48th Street. Carson & Lundin, architects, 1950-1952. To be added to Rockefeller Center in 1963.

The Sinclair Oil Building. View looking nortwest from Fifth Avenue and 48th Street. Early 1952.

Photo: Ezra Stoller-ESTO.

Source: Stern, Robert A.M.; Mellins, Thomas; Fishman, David. "New York 1960. Architecture and urbanism between the Second World War and the Bicentennial". New York. The Monacelli Press. Second Edition. 1997.

Don't miss the new article (in Spanish) about the Sinclair Oil Building in the blog “Historia de los Rascacielos de Nueva York”.

https://bit.ly/35yshFW

Night view looking southwest of Midtown Manhattan's Rockefeller Center and Avenue of the Americas skyscraper cluster from West New York, New Jersey, spring, 1965.

Buildings are, at left the Mutual of New York (Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, 1950) and Seagram (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe-Phillip Johnson-Kahn & Jacobs, 1958) and the ABC Building (Emery Roth & Sons, 1965) under construction. At the center are the New York Hilton Hotel (William B. Tabler-Harrison & Abramovitz, 1963), the new CBS Building (Eero Saarinen Associates, 1965), the J.C. Penney Building (Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, 1965), Americana Hotel (Morris Lapidus & Associates Kornblath, Harle & Liebman, 1962), and the Equitable Life Assurance Building (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 1961). At right are the Rockefeller Center’s Time & Life (Harrison & abramovits, 1959) and the R.C.A. (Associated Architects, 1933). Behind them can be seen the Union Carbide Building (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 1960, demolished in 2021).

Photo: Acacia Card Company, New York, N.Y.

Midtown Manhattan skyscrapers. View looking north from the 86th floor observatory of the Empire State Building. Spring, 1968.

Buildings under construction at left, are, the 45-story Interchem Building (Emery Roth & Sons, 1969) at foreground, and the 50-story Burlington House Building (Emery Roth & Sons, 1969) at background. In the center, at background the Rockefeller Center complex with R.C.A. Building (Associates Architects, 1933) and the new 50-story General Motors Building (Edward Durell Stone-Emery Roth & Sons, 1968) nearing completion dominates the skyline. At foreground is the 58-story 500 Fifth Avenue Building (Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, 1931). At right are the new ITT North America Building (Emery Roth & Sons, 1967), the 41-story Bankers Trust Annex Building (Emery Roth & Sons,1968) under construction, and the Union Carbide Building (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 1960, demolished in 2021). On foreground are the steel skeleton for the new Emigrant Savings Bank Building (Emery Roth & Sons, 1969) under construction and the 42-story 330 Madison Avenue Building (Kahn & Jacobs, 1964).

Photo: Unknown (amateur Kodachrome slide)

Aerial view looking southwest of Midtown Manhattan. Summer, 1964.

Photo: Alfred Mainser, Inc.

Night view of Midtown Manhattan skyline. View looking southeast from Fort Lee, New Jersey, Autumn, 1973. 

The new Solow Buidling (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 1974) and Pan Am building (Walter Gropius-Emery Roth & Sons-Pietro Belluschi, 1963) are at left. Rockefeller Center’s R.C.A. Building (Associated Architects, 1933) and skyscrapers surrounding it are at center. At right can be seen the Uris Plaza (Emery Roth & Sons, 1972) and One Astor Plaza (Kahn & Jacobs, 1972), and above them, the top of the Empire State Building (Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, 1931) fully illuminated, dominates the skyline.

Photo: Unknown.

The 102-story Empire State Building. 350 Fifth Avenue, west block between 33rd to 34th streets. Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, 1930-1931.

View looking northwest of the Empire State Building and its neighborhood from Metropolitan Life tower. Summer, 1951. Rockefeller Center’s R.C.A. Building and 500 Fifth Avenue tower can be seen at background, right. The recently completed 1407 Broadway Building are visible at left, backgound.

Photo: Empire State Building, Inc.

Source: Horn, Jack. "And on the Right. A New York City Guide". New York, Jack Horn-New York Printing Company. 15th Edition, 1970.

Aerial view looking west of Midtown Manhattan, with United Nations Headquarters on foreground. Early, 1951. 

The Chrysler Building (left) and Rockefeller Center complex (right) appears at background.

Photo: Fairchild Aerial Surveys. 

Source: "Luz y Visión". Time & Life Books, 1980.

Don’t miss a general panorama of the evollution of Manhattan cityscape (in Spanish) during 1951 in the blog “Historia de los Rascacielos de Nueva York”.

https://bit.ly/2K9uMXR

Aerial view looking southwest of Midtown Manhattan in the summer of 1947. The Empire State and Chrysler buildings are at left. Waldorf-Astoria hotel and General Electric Building are at center and Rockefeller Center buildings are at right.

Photo: Pan American Airlines.

Source:“New Horizons U. S. A. The Guide to Travel in the United States” (New York, Pan American World Airways - Simon & Schuster, 1960).

Midtown Manhattan skyscrapers. View looking south from the top of R.C.A. Building in Rockefeller Center. Spring, 1947.

The 58-story 500 Fifth Avenue tower (Shreve; Lamb & Harmon, 1931) are on foreground, left. The 102-story Empire State Building (Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, 1931), at center, dominates the skyline.

Photo: Museum of City of New York Collection. 

Source: Whiteridge, Annette. "New York, Then and Now". San Diego. Thunder Bay Press. 2001.

The 16-story Eastern Airlines Building. Rockefeller Center. 10 Rockefeller Plaza, between west 48th to 49th Streets. Associated Architects, 1938-1939.

View looking southwest of the recently completed Eastern Airlines Building from 5oth Street. On foreground, the Rockefeller Center’s Promenade with Paul Manship’s Prometheus golden sculpture. Late, 1939.

Photo: F.S. Lincoln.

Source: Architectural Forum, January, 1940.

The Rockefeller Center original complex. Fifth to Sixth avenues between West 48th to 51st Streets. The Associated Architects (Reinhard & Hofmeister; Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray; Raymond Hood, Godley & Fouilhoux; Edward Durrell Stone). 1931-1940.

The new 70-story  R.C.A. Building (Associated Architects, 1933) dominates the new Rockefeller Center complex, in this view looking west from the top of 444 Madison Avenue Building. Summer, 1933. The 32-story R.K.O. Building (Associates Architects, 1932) and Radio City Music Hall are visibles at right.

Photo: Rockefeller Center, Inc.

Source: Balfour; Alan. “Rockefeller Center. Architecture as Theater” (New York. McGraw-Hill. 1978).

The 45-story Rockefeller Center’s Sperry Rand Building. 1290 Avenue of the Americas between east 51st to 52th streets. Emery Roth & Sons, architects. Harrison & Abramovitz, consultant architects, 1961-1963.

View looking southeast of the Sperry Rand Building, in late Summer, 1963. In foreground, the precast concrete structure for the CBS Building (Eero Saarinen Associates, 1965), under construction, began to riese up. 

Photo: Wurts Brothers/Museum of the City of New York.