Daily News Building

The Daily News Building is a skyscraper at 220 East 42nd Street in the East Midtown neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States. Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells designed the original Art Deco tower completed in 1930, while Harrison & Abramovitz designed an expansion completed in 1960. The original structure was one of several major development projects on 42nd Street during the late 1920s and early 1930s, along with the Lincoln Building, Chanin Building, Chrysler Building, and Tudor City. Upon its completion, the building received mixed reviews and was described as having a utilitarian design. The Daily News Building is a National Historic Landmark, and its exterior and lobby are New York City designated landmarks.
The Daily News Building consists of a 36-story, 476-foot (145 m) tower and two shorter additions. The large carved-granite entrance at 42nd Street leads rotunda lobby with a rotating globe. The original structure is an L-shaped tower that faces 41st Street to the south, Second Avenue to the east, and 42nd Street to the north, with a longer frontage on 41st Street than on 42nd Street. The annex northeast of the original tower gives the present building a rectangular land lot. The massing, or general shape, includes several setbacks on higher floors.
The Daily News Building was commissioned by Joseph Medill Patterson, the founder of the New York Daily News. Hood and Howells filed blueprints with the Manhattan Bureau of Buildings in June 1928, and the Daily News started moving into the building in February 1930, with the lobby opening that July. The newspaper filed plans in 1944 for an annex, work on which began in 1957, after additional land had been acquired. A limited partnership led by the La Salle Street Fund acquired the building in 1982, and the Daily News downsized its space there over the next decade. After the final Daily News employees moved out of the building in 1995, the newspaper's former space was rented out to other tenants. SL Green Realty bought the building in 2003 and sold a partial ownership stake to Meritz Alternative Investment Management in 2021.
The Daily News Building is at 220 East 42nd Street in the East Midtown neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States. The site is bounded by 42nd Street to the north, Second Avenue to the east, 41st Street to the south, and a private alley called Kempner Place to the west. It is near the New York City Subway's Grand Central–42nd Street station (4, ​5, ​6, <6>​, 7, <7>​​, and S trains), the Chrysler Building, and the Socony–Mobil Building one block west; in addition, Tudor City and the Ford Foundation Building are one block east.
Emporis and the Skyscraper Center cite the building as being approximately 476 feet (145 m) tall with 36 floors. The original portion of the Daily News Building was designed by Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells as the headquarters of the New York Daily News. Designed in the Art Deco style, it contrasts with Hood's earlier designs for the Tribune Tower in Chicago and the American Radiator Building in Manhattan, both of which had Gothic ornament. Hood designed the building around Daily News' practical needs, rather than based on aesthetics, though he did not "feel that the News Building is worse looking than some other buildings". According to Hood, both the owner and architect had agreed that "the most simple and direct way to get an effective exterior" was to incorporate colorful features. Harrison & Abramovitz designed the annex, which was completed in 1960.
The massing or general shape—with several setbacks on all four sides—was influenced by the requirements of the 1916 Zoning Resolution. The 36-story tower, built between 1928 and 1930, is on the northern portion of the site, facing 42nd Street. It is L-shaped, with a frontage of 90 feet (27 m) along the middle of the block on 42nd Street, and a frontage of 300 feet (91 m) on 41st Street extending eastward to Second Avenue. The northern elevation along 42nd Street contains one large setback at the 9th floor. On the western elevation, the southernmost ten bays are set back at the 9th floor, while the following two bays to the north are set back the same distance above the 15th floor, creating a zigzag effect. The southern elevation has small setbacks at the 7th and 13th floors, as well as larger setbacks at the 27th floor and above the 36th floor. To the east, the northernmost seven bays protrude slightly below the 33rd floor, while the rest of the eastern elevation rises straight from the ground.
The southern portion of the Daily News Building, near 41st Street, is shorter than the tower and formerly served as the printing plant. Completed in 1930, initially contained nine stories; an additional five stories were built in the late 1950s and are set back from the original structure. An 18-story annex, also built in the late 1950s, runs on the northeastern portion of the plot, facing Second Avenue and 42nd Street.
The facade is divided vertically into window bays separated by irregularly placed white-brick wall sections. Between the different stories are spandrels, which are made of reddish-brown and black brick laid in a contrasting pattern. The spandrel panels at lower floors contain geometric patterns, while those on upper floors have been simplified into horizontal bars. On floors with setbacks, the panels also contain miniature setbacks, while the tops of the facade's vertical bands terminate abruptly. The bands were similar to those on the residence of Daily News publisher Joseph Medill Patterson, at 3 East 84th Street, which Hood had also designed. The windows were each 4.75 feet (1.4 m) wide, while the centers of the windows were spaced at intervals of 9 feet (2.7 m), creating a uniform fenestration or window layout. According to Hood, the window layout allowed the interior space to be divided into offices, though other observers stated that horizontal strips of windows would have also served this purpose.
At the base of the tower, on 42nd Street, is a three-story-tall granite-clad main entrance that spans five bays. The entrance was relatively luxurious since Hood was given a $150,000 budget for its design. Over the entrance is a carving of the phrase "The News", below which is a large bas-relief designed by Hood. The bas-relief has carvings of people and the phrase "He Made So Many of Them". The latter quotation was attributed to Abraham Lincoln and referenced the "common people" to whom the Daily News was intended; the figure directly below the word "He" may represent Lincoln. The entrance is flanked by glass pylons with bronze ornamentation and horizontal bronze strips. On either side of the main entrance are smaller storefront entrances, which are topped by a horizontal frieze with white brick. There is a granite inscription from Patterson on the western elevation and five loading docks to the south.
The top of the facade is plain in design, with parapet walls extending above the roof to conceal the elevator rooms and the maintenance penthouses on the roof. Hood had initially been conflicted about how to design the top stories, and one account has it that the architect Frank Lloyd Wright advised Hood to "just cut the top off". Hood's assistant Walter Kilham recalled that Wright retracted his suggestion after being confronted by Kilham.
The original printing plant on 41st Street is similar to that of the tower, though the bays are grouped in sets of three. Each grouping is separated by wide white-brick piers, while the groupings of windows are internally subdivided by narrower piers. There are friezes above the first and second floors, as well as six loading docks on 41st Street.
The annex's design echoes the vertical stripes of the original design, except with wider stripes. Like the original building, the vertical bays each contain one window per floor, and there are light-and-dark-red brick spandrels between different floors. The piers between each bay have slightly-projecting white-brick piers with aluminum sheathing, and the facade of the printing-plant addition is designed in the same manner.
The original structure has a floor area of 663,000 square feet (61,600 m), while the annex covers 270,000 square feet (25,000 m). Including an additional 76,000 feet (23,000 m) above the original printing plant, the building has 1,009,700 square feet (93,800 m).
The lobby includes a circular rotunda with a black glass-domed ceiling, situated near the 42nd Street entrance. In a stepped pit under the ceiling is a rotating globe painted by Daniel Putnam Brinley. Conceived by the Daily News as a educational exhibit, the globe measures 12 feet (3.7 m) in diameter and includes over 3,000 geographical features. The pit itself contains popular science inscriptions and is recessed 6 feet (1.8 m) into the lobby floor. Within the rest of the lobby, the floor has a terrazzo-and-bronze compass rose, with bronze inscriptions denoting world cities and their distances from New York City. On the walls are nineteen panels designed by J. Henry Weber, which depict maps, weather charts, and clocks from different time zones. South of the rotunda are bronze plaques on the elevator lobbies' walls, which memorialize Daily News employees who fought in major wars.
As originally configured, the rotunda was approached from the 42nd Street entrance to the north and from a hallway on the southwest. The hallway led to two banks of elevators and a restaurant, and there were storefronts next to the rotunda. The elevator lobbies had bronze grilles and other decorations designed by Rene Paul Chambellan in the Art Deco style. Eighteen glass display cases formed a scientific and educational display, with meteorology exhibits by James H. Scarr, a U.S. Weather Bureau meteorologist. The main lobby was so popular among tourists that a side entrance was built for Daily News employees. During the late 1950s, the storefronts on either side of the rotunda were removed and incorporated into the main lobby. The glass showcases were replaced with wall panels, the city names on the floor were modified, and a hallway was extended to Second Avenue.
The rotunda was inspired by the Glass Pavilion by Bruno Taut, and the recessed globe in particular was inspired by Napoleon's tomb at Les Invalides. Accounts differ on who had the most influence on the lobby's design. Daily News historians said that Patterson had proposed the idea for the lobby, while Hood's biographer indicated that Hood had come up with the idea and that Patterson had been skeptical of including a globe in the design.
When the Daily News occupied the building, the press rooms and circulation departments were on lower floors, while the editorial departments were on higher floors. The ground story contained the circulation department, mail rooms, and delivery rooms. There were topped by a reel room on the second story, in addition to 76 printing presses and a visitors' gallery on the third story. The Museum of the Peaceful Arts originally occupied the fourth story, which was reserved for a future expansion of the newspaper's offices. The fifth story could store 8,440 short tons (7,540 long tons; 7,660 t) of paper, and the sixth story was devoted to local advertising. The newspaper's photograph studio and editorial department were on the next story, the latter of which was connected to the composing room by pneumatic tubes. Also on the seventh floor were the feature, sports, and television departments, with the promotion department on the western side. The newspaper's executive offices and its accounting, personnel, purchasing, and stock departments were housed on the eighth floor.
The main tower contained office space, some of which was used by the Daily News and its affiliates; this consisted of lofts separated by movable partitions. Although Hood was not heavily involved in the design of the office stories, he designed an executive suite for Patterson.
Joseph Medill Patterson, a member of a large publishing family, founded the Daily News in 1919 as the United States' first widely-published daily tabloid. While the Daily News was not an immediate success, it had become the city's largest newspaper by 1925, with a daily circulation of over a million. The newspaper was originally based at 25 City Hall Place in the Civic Center of Lower Manhattan, moving in 1921 to the nearby 23 Park Place; six years later, it sought to relocate again. In looking for a new location, the Daily News followed the example of The New York Times and New York Herald in moving from Lower to Midtown Manhattan. Although Daily News research manager Harry Corash found that the city's population was centered in Queens, east of the East River, it was easier to coordinate newspaper distribution from Manhattan than from Queens.
The site ultimately chosen was on East 42nd Street; the section east of Grand Central Terminal and Lexington Avenue had yet to be developed, and the newspaper's historians called the area "a row of old, assorted, unpretentious structures". Patterson felt the 42nd Street location was ideal, as it was on the same street as Times Square, where the rival Times's headquarters were located. On February 3, 1928, the Daily News bought a 40,000-square-foot (3,700 m) tract facing 41st and 42nd streets, between Second and Third avenues, from the Tishman Construction Company for $2.5 million (equivalent to $35 million in 2023). Patterson planned to build a 20-story structure for the Daily News on the site. Less than two weeks later, the newspaper bought another 8,000 square feet (740 m) at 41st Street and Second Avenue. This gave the Daily News an L-shaped lot measuring approximately 355 feet (108 m) on 41st Street, 125 feet (38 m) on 42nd Street, 99 feet (30 m) on Second Avenue, and 197 feet (60 m) to the west.
Patterson hired Hood and Howells as architects; the pair had previously won a competition to design the Tribune Tower, the headquarters of the Chicago Tribune, which was owned by Patterson's cousin Robert R. McCormick. Hood initially proposed a tower, but Patterson rejected these plans, as he did not want the structure to become a monument. To convince Patterson, Hood framed the tower plan as an "efficient" business decision and prepared numerous models for the building, concluding that it would be most efficient to erect a structure of 35 and 40 stories. Hood presented various floor plans to Patterson every week until Patterson acquiesced on the eleventh meeting. Patterson rejected one of Hood's plans with a setback above the third story, since it would have eliminated usable office space allowed under the zoning restrictions. A plan to use a limestone facade was scrapped due to cost, and brick was used instead. Hood carved a plastic model of the building's tapered design, and he drew up plans for a blocky massing with several setbacks.
On the west side of the building was the Commercial High School, which the New York City Board of Education was planning to tear down. In February 1929, the Daily News and the Board of Education each agreed to cede 25 feet (7.6 m) for a pedestrian walkway, protecting views from the building's western facade. Only the Daily News Building's section of the walkway was built, as the high school remained unbuilt until the late 20th century. Nonetheless, the presence of the pedestrian walkway allowed Hood to design the western elevation with a fully-decorated facade.
In June 1928, the architects submitted blueprints to the Manhattan Bureau of Buildings for a 36-story building costing $6.6 million (equivalent to $92,543,807 in 2023). In addition to the Daily News, the new structure would include offices for Tribune subsidiaries. The Hegeman-Harris Company was hired as the main contractor for the project, which was to last 14 months. Officials laid the ceremonial cornerstone, filled with relics of the newspaper's owner Tribune Media, in September 1928. By the following February, thirty percent of the office space had been rented to other companies; one such tenant had rented 100,000 square feet (9,300 m). International Paper had agreed to lend $5 million to the Daily News to fund the building's development, but the loan fell through, prompting the newspaper to sue International Paper in May 1929.
Construction of the steel frame was finished in August 1929, and the Daily News Building was almost complete by the end of the year. The Times described the project as one of several high-rise developments that were "radically changing the old-time conditions" along East 42nd Street, along with the Lincoln Building, Chanin Building, Chrysler Building, and Tudor City. In November 1929, several construction workers and craftsmen were given certificates for "outstanding work" on the building; at that point, the structure was 75 percent rented. The Daily News started moving into the building in February 1930. The lobby, which was supposed to be completed by that May, did not open to the public until July 23, 1930. The structure including the newspaper's new printing presses, had cost $10.7 million (equivalent to $155,378,741 in 2023).
When the Daily News Building opened, The New Yorker characterized the office space as "actually a factory, done at factory prices", saying that Hood had focused on practicality rather than artistic effect. During the building's first decade, the Daily News rented out space to tenants such as American Locomotive Company subsidiary Alco Products, the Ahrens Publishing Company, the Museum of the Peaceful Arts, and a branch of the National City Bank of New York. United Press International moved its headquarters there in 1931. Within a decade of opening, the lobby's research desk served 625,000 annual visitors.
The newspaper filed plans in October 1944 for a 24-story annex at Second Avenue and 41st Street. The annex, designed by Harrison, Fouilhoux & Abramovitz (later Harrison & Abramovitz), would have cost $3 million (equivalent to $41 million in 2023) and was planned to be built after World War II. After Daily News acquired the TV station WPIX, the station's television studio opened at the building in June 1948. WPIX broadcast from the building's 778-foot-high (237 m) mast until 1951, when transmission facilities were relocated to the Empire State Building's 1,400-foot (430 m) mast. By August 1950, the News Syndicate Company had acquired all of the lots at the southwest corner of 42nd Street and Second Avenue, with plans to build a broadcasting station there.
In the late 1950s, as part of a $20 million expansion of the newspaper's facilities (equivalent to $178 million in 2023), Harrison & Abramovitz were hired to design an expansion and renovation of the building, while Turner Construction was hired as the construction contractor. The architects submitted plans for a 19-story annex in May 1957, and excavation of the site started later that year. Construction was delayed by a labor strike during early 1958, and the facade of the annex was substantially completed by April 1959. Daily News president Francis Marion Flynn also oversaw a renovation of the lobby. The new structure was completed in June 1960, and the expanded building was 90 percent rented by that August. The expansions more than doubled the building's floor area to 1,009,700 square feet (93,800 m). The New York Times described the Daily News Building annex as one of several structures built as part of a "building boom" on Second Avenue between 40th and 45th streets.
By 1964, a combined heating–cooling system had been installed at the Daily News Building. A 61-week-long restoration of the lobby globe was completed three years later, and the globe was repainted for the first time in three decades. The Daily News and the International Paper Company were the main occupants of the Daily News Building by the 1970s, though the latter moved out in 1978. During that decade, the Daily News installed six-page-wide printing presses as part of a pilot program to increase production.
Tribune Media placed the Daily News and the building for sale in 1981 but had trouble finding a buyer. At the time, media and real-estate concerns cited by The New York Times projected that the building might be worth $150–250 million (equivalent to $426–709 million in 2023), while The Washington Post cited a valuation of $100–135 million (equivalent to $284–383 million in 2023). Several commentators suggested that the newspaper be shuttered, or that the printing presses be relocated, to free up space. To reduce costs, Daily News publisher Robert M. Hunt had proposed shutting down the printing plant and spending $60 million to upgrade a printing plant in Brooklyn. By then, the Daily News' printing operations were split evenly between the Daily News Building and the Brooklyn plant. Though the financier Joe Allbritton tentatively agreed to buy the paper in April 1982, the transaction excluded the building.
Tribune Media agreed in November 1982 to sell the building to 220 East Limited Partnership, a limited partnership led by the La Salle Street Fund. The sale was finalized the next month for approximately $90 million. As part of the sale, the Daily News leased back its office space from the new owners, and the printing and distribution operations were moved to other facilities in the New York metropolitan area. The Daily News removed its printing presses from the building in 1984, freeing up 175,000 square feet (16,300 m) for commercial use, and it renovated the existing 1 million square feet (93,000 m) of office space. Tribune Media leased the refurbished offices to tenants such as architectural and law firms, doubling the annual rental rates to between $25 and $35 per square foot ($270 and $380/m). Through the early 1990s, the Daily News continued to reduce the amount of space it occupied; by then, the structure housed only the paper's business offices and newsrooms, while production and distribution had been relocated to New Jersey.
In October 1994, the Daily News announced that it would relocate its remaining operations within the Daily News Building to 450 West 33rd Street in Chelsea, Manhattan. At the time, the newspaper occupied 130,000 square feet (12,000 m) across 21 floors of the Daily News Building; the new headquarters was slightly smaller, at 112,000 square feet (10,400 m), but was consolidated on a single floor. The move was motivated by the cost of maintaining several spaces, the pending expiration of the lease, and the fact that the newspaper's operations in the building had been downsized over the previous decade. The new offices had modern technology for the Daily News, and the newspaper no longer needed to occupy so much space, as its circulation had decreased significantly from its mid-20th century peak. Furthermore, the newspaper had tried unsuccessfully to extend its lease by 2+1⁄2 years. Tribune Media would not relocate WPIX, which had expanded its space in the building the same year.
The last Daily News employees relocated in May 1995; the building still had over 50 tenants, including Tribune affiliates WPIX-TV and WQCD-FM, as well as Crain Communications. The Daily News Building's owners placed it for sale by January 1996, at which point the building had an occupancy rate of either 83 or 86 percent, despite the departure of the Daily News. The developer Steve Witkoff of Stellar Management, along with JAG Capital, agreed that September to buy the building for $110–115 million. To obtain a $140 million mortgage loan, the new owners leased out most of the vacant space; the Omnicom Group leased most of the building in 1997. The Daily News Building was again placed for sale in early 2001, with three prospective buyers submitting bids. SL Green Realty won the right to buy the building, finalizing its purchase in 2002 for $265 million. By then, the building was fully occupied, with tenants such as the Tribune's affiliates, Omnicom, Verizon Communications, Value Line, Neuberger Berman, and the United Nations Population Fund.
SL Green was considering selling the property by January 2019, and the developer Jacob Chetrit offered $815 million for the building that October. The sale was canceled in March 2020 after Deutsche Bank withdrew its financing as a result of economic uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2020, SL Green refinanced the building with a $510 million mortgage; the structure was almost fully leased by then. SL Green sued Chetrit over the cancellation of the sale after Chetrit objected to SL Green's recovery of a $35 million development from an escrow account, a dispute that was resolved in September 2020. The following year, SL Green sold a 49 percent ownership stake in the building to Meritz Alternative Investment Management for $790 million.
As of 2025, the building's mass media tenants include the former Daily News TV broadcast subsidiary WPIX, as well as NewsNation, which opened their New York bureau there in 2023. Other major tenants include the Visiting Nurse Service of New York on 308,000 square feet (28,600 m), the organization UN Women on 85,000 square feet (7,900 m), and the nonprofit Young Adult Institute on 75,000 square feet (7,000 m). The United Nations Development Programme, the consulate general of Brazil in New York City, and the New York office of the public relations firm FleishmanHillard also have offices at the structure.
Historians for the Daily News wrote in 1971 that "the building did a lot for the paper". The newspaper's officials referred to it as one of Hood's "triumphs", though most of the paper's praise for the building was directed toward the lobby. In 1931, the Daily News published an editorial rebutting modern architecture, saying that its headquarters' design was focused on the "efficient production of newspapers". At the time of the building's opening, a Daily News article praised the lobby as having a state-of-the-art exhibit. Prior to his death, Hood had deprecated the building's "architectural beauty" and "composition", instead focusing on its "effect".
Architectural critics had mixed opinions of the design. The architect Frank Scarlett, having viewed a model of the building, considered it to have deviated from the eclectic style that had been popular until the early 20th century. The New Yorker, profiling Hood in 1931, said that the Daily News Building was "a distinctly untraditional building" and that Hood's design had been "daringly successful". Douglas Haskell of The Nation magazine called the facade "almost nothing but a series of stripes", which he deemed to be artistic, and the architect Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison wrote of the facade: "'Stripes' is Mr. Hood's middle name. He can't get away from them." The writer Randolph Williams Sexton stated that "the vertical movement [of the building] is unbroken throughout", while another observer, Arthur T. North, said the lobby exhibit was "a genuine contribution to architecture".
After Hood's death in 1934, critics and the media described him as having been "utilitarian" in his designs. The New York Times said that the building's design made him "practically a complete functionalist". The contemporary modernist architect Harvey Wiley Corbett said in Architectural Forum that the building was a "right about-face [...] from the former eclectic approach". Architectural Forum lauded the utilitarian nature of the building's exterior in 1935 and praised the lobby as "romantic and dramatic".
Other critics viewed the building as architecturally lacking. The architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock and the architect Philip Johnson perceived the "crisp square termination" of the roof as deceptive because it concealed the mechanical equipment and water tanks there, but they said the setbacks were "brilliantly handled in a way that does not produce a heavy pyramidal mass". The New York Herald Tribune's obituary of Hood expressed a similarly critical sentiment about the roof. The architectural critic Royal Cortissoz refused to acknowledge the building as an architectural work, to which Hood is said to have replied, "So much the better". After the annex was completed, the critic Paul Goldberger characterized the addition as a "thoughtful but inadequate companion" to the original tower.
Later reviews of the building compared it with works of contemporary architecture. One guidebook, published in 1952, stated that the building had an "asymmetrical, almost picturesque" shape. Another book in 1960 perceived the tower's freestanding nature as its most appealing quality. Further reviews in the 1970s described the building as having deviated from popular architectural styles of the time, and being a modern skyscraper that was easily distinguishable from "mediocre metal-and-glass neighbors". Robert A. M. Stern and the coauthors of his 1987 book New York 1930 wrote that Hood had adapted the massing of Ralph Thomas Walker's Western Union Building, saying the Daily News Building's shape "suggested the possibilities of a tall building as a continuous extrusion".
George Everard Kidder Smith described the building in 1996 as "all Hood and all very fresh", praising the design of the setbacks, and the architectural writer Eric Nash said in 1999 that Hood had avoided making the building's setbacks look like a "carved mountain", as contemporaries like Walker and Ferriss had. In the early 2000s, the rival New York Times called the Daily News Building "one of America's great newspaper buildings", as compared with the Times's then-headquarters at 229 West 43rd Street. Justin Davidson of New York magazine wrote in 2017 that Hood had "produced an artistic creation, a jazzy concoction of syncopated setbacks and white-brick stripes shooting toward the sky. In a city of flat façades, this was a sculpture to be appreciated from all sides."
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) hosted hearings in 1966 to determine whether the Daily News Building should be designated as a city landmark. The LPC designated the exterior as a New York City landmark in 1981, and its first-floor interior was similarly designated in 1998. The LPC, in granting the exterior landmark status, called the tower "one of the city's major Art Deco presences". The building also became a National Historic Landmark in 1989. Only the original tower and printing plant are covered by the National Historic Landmark and New York City landmark designations.
Hugh Ferriss drew a rendering of the Daily News Building in 1930. The rendering helped inspire the design of the fictional Daily Planet headquarters in the Superman franchise. Smithsonian magazine wrote that Ferriss's drawing depicted the Daily News Building as "a streamlined vertical monument" and that the sketch had such a powerful effect because "everything Ferriss drew looked like it belonged in a comic book". The Daily News Building was also used as a filming location for scenes at the Daily Planet in the 1978 film Superman: The Movie; according to the film's screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz, the building had been chosen because the lobby's globe resembled the Daily Planet logo. When the 1977 New York City blackout began on July 13–14, the building's facade served as a set for the upcoming release of the film.