Only in New York
The Starrett-Lehigh building is packing in visual companies alongside Martha Stewart
The visual industry in New York, long looking for a building it could call its own, is fast colonizing the Starrett-Lehigh Building.
Since 2003, when newly formed joint opened a vast showroom on the top floor of the building and Patina-V took temporary space there for StoreXpo, Manhattan's visual companies have been blinking into the afternoon sunset at the historic building that takes over
an entire city block between Eleventh and Twelfth avenues and 26th to 27th streets. (December market attendees might remember the building from a few years ago, when MET Merchandising Concepts opened a glittering showroom that hosted glittering parties.)
Last year, Starrett-Lehigh indeed earned its visual bona fides as James Maharg moved his Look showroom uptown from TriBeCa; Goldsmith abandoned its long-established showroom on West 25th Street for space in the building; and Holiday Foliage and RHÔ also set up shop there for StoreXpo.
What is it about this notable building, other than its proximity to the Javits Center, where StoreXpo will locate once again in December? Well, there's its list of fashionable tenants: Martha Stewart, W Hotels, Hugo Boss, Club Monaco, Tommy Hilfiger, Carolina Herrera, Comme des Garcons, Dooney & Burke and Tracy Feith.
There's its classic urban architecture, which once inspired Frank Lloyd Wright and Philip Johnson.
And there's the fact that it's still there!
While other, arguably better-located industrial buildings have been razed by developers looking for the investment-maximizing high-rises of, say, the Upper East Side, the Starrett-Lehigh Building has been saved by its own geographic undesirability for much of the last century.
Built as a joint venture between the developer Starrett Brothers and Eken (who also developed The Empire State Building), it was completed in 1931, a stunningly modern behemoth at 2.5 million square feet of interior space. It still has one of the two truck elevators in the city that can handle a 29-foot-long, 15-ton vehicle.
The first three floors are steel-frame construction and the rest of the building is a cantilevered concrete design. The code-required setbacks grant the façade that classic wedding-cake appearance, alternating red brick sandwiching layers of Hudson-reflecting glass. The concrete slab floors, none thicker than 81⁄4 inches, are supported by mushroom-capital columns that spread the load over a large area. One of the few American buildings to be featured in MoMA's “international style” exhibition in 1932, this building inspired Wright's Johnson Wax Building in Racine, Wis., and Johnson's Post Oak Central Building in Houston.
Given that the ceilings are 20 feet high in some areas, and the staggering strips of uninterrupted windows face the river and the afternoon sunlight, it's no surprise that several art galleries and photo studios have taken roost, including Bruce Wolf photography. Among the other quirky neighbors are the FBI garage and a floor commanded by Homeland Security.
And so the Starrett-Lehigh stands today as an architectural monument to the American economy as it continues to evolve from manufacturing muscle to decoratives and mannequins (with a little terrorism watch-dogging) – a sort of real estate Abominable Snowman that has defrosted to reclaim its star status.
Experience New York yourself. Attend
StoreXpo in December. For more information, visit www.storexpo.info.
Victoria Rowan is VM+SD's New York editor. Her tours through the shops, museums, windows, offices and streets of the city will be a regular feature of the magazine.