1221 Avenue of the Americas

The 1221 Avenue of the Americas is an International Style skyscraper designed in 1963 by Harrison, Abramovitz & Harris, with Wallace Harrison as lead architect, and built between 1966 and 1972 in New York, NY.

1221 Avenue of the Americas is not the only name you might know this building by though. Between 1969 and 2015 it was also known as McGraw-Hill Building.

Its precise street address is 1221 6th Avenue, New York, NY. You can also find it on the map here.

A plaza located on the south side of the building sits slightly below street level, creating a sense of refuge amidst the city's hustle and bustle. On the west side of the tower, there's a seven-story base that conceals a landscaped public passageway running through the block.

The building has been restored 2 times over the years to ensure its conservation and adaptation to the pass of time. The main restoration works happened in 2016 and 2023.

Harrison, Abramovitz & Harris, with Wallace Harrison as the lead architect, was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the 1221 Avenue of the Americas a reality:

• Edwards & Hjorth in charge of Structural Engineering
• Rockefeller Group as the Main Developer
• Athelstan Spilhaus as the collaborating Artist

The 1221 Avenue of the Americas can be categorized as an International Style building.

The 1221 Avenue of the Americas uses a frame structure made of steel columns and slabs.

A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.

The facade of the building however, is load bearing. This doesn't imply that it is a traditional load-bearing wall. Rather, it means that the structure's exterior pillars have been pushed to the very edges, becoming integrated with the facade, and therefore, technically, a part of it.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features vertical pillars clad in red granite with horizontal dark aluminum spandrels, creating a cohesive design, with large windows forming a uniform and continuous pattern that wraps around the entire building. This combination of materials and design elements gives the structure a distinctive and elegant appearance, while also contributing to its robust and modern aesthetic.

One every two pillars on the facade is structural, while the others are purely a design choice, and don't actually reach the ground.