page_title: Chanin Building
section_title: Facade
hierarchical_section_title: Chanin Building / Description / Facade
caption_attribution_description: English: East 42nd Street near Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, New York; Chanin Building (right) and Socony-Mobil Building (left)
context_page_description: The Chanin Building, also known as 122 East 42nd Street, is a 56-story office skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is located on the southwest corner of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue, near Grand Central Terminal to the north and adjacent to 110 East 42nd Street to the west. The building is named for Irwin S. Chanin, its developer.
  The structure was designed by Sloan & Robertson in the Art Deco style, with the assistance of Chanin's own architect Jacques Delamarre. It incorporates architectural sculpture by Rene Paul Chambellan, as well as a facade of brick and terracotta. The skyscraper reaches 680 feet, with a 649-foot-tall roof topped by a 31-foot spire. The Chanin Building includes numerous setbacks to conform with the 1916 Zoning Resolution.
  The Chanin Building was constructed in 1927–1929, and was almost fully rented upon opening. Over the years, the upper floors have contained a movie theater, observation deck, and radio broadcast station, while the lower floors were used as offices and a bus terminal. The building was designated a New York City landmark in 1978, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
context_section_description: The Chanin Building is clad with brick, limestone, and terracotta, as well as bronze, marble, and colored glass ornament that was custom-designed. The base of the building bears black Belgian marble around the store front windows, which are each made of plate glass. Directly above, a bronze frieze depicts scenes of evolution, ranging from simple organisms to more complex animals and plants. A second terracotta frieze runs the whole length of the lower facade, presenting a dramatic collection of angular zigzags and curvy leaves. A bas-relief by Edward Trumbull, designed in the Art Deco style, wraps around the facade.
  The facade continues upward in relatively simple tones. The second and third floors include bronze-framed groups of triple-paned windows, with bronze Art Deco spandrel panels between the floors. Each grouping is separated by vertical piers made of limestone, topped by elaborate capitals. The fourth story is faced with ornate terracotta panels depicting plants, evoking the stylized forms common in the Art Deco style. There are buttresses on the fifth and sixth stories of the Lexington Avenue facade's recessed section, and at the corners of the 30th through 49th stories. The crown, above the Chanin Company's 52nd floor offices, contains abstract-patterned projecting ornamentation.
  Originally, 212 artificial candles at the top of the Chanin Building provided the equivalent of 30 million candlepower. These lights, meant to highlight the details of the building, were characteristic of the Art Deco style, and on cloudless nights, could be seen from more than 40 miles (64 km) away. They had been toned down by the late twentieth century.
caption: Lower section of the facade, as seen from across 42nd Street; the Socony–Mobil Building is visible at left
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