The General Electric Building, also known as 570 Lexington Avenue, is a historic 50-floor, 640-foot (200 m)-tall, skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States, at the southwest corner of Lexington Avenue and 51st Street). Originally known as the RCA Victor Building when designed in 1931 by John W. Cross of Cross and Cross, and sometimes known by its address to avoid confusion with the later GE Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The building was deeded by RCA to GE before construction was completed.
It backs up to the low Byzantine dome of St. Bartholomew's Church on Park Avenue and shares the same salmon brick color. But from Lexington, the building is an insistently tall 50-floor stylized Gothic tower with its own identity, a classic Art Deco visual statement of suggested power through simplification. The base contains elaborate, generous masonry, architectural figural sculpture, and on the corner above the main entrance, a conspicuous corner clock with the curvy GE logo and a pair of silver disembodied forearms. The crown of the building is a dynamic-looking burst of Gothic tracery, which is supposed to represent radio waves, and is lit from within at night.
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Famous quotes containing the words general, electric and/or building:
“We raised a simple prayer
Before we left the spot,
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That place might be forgot;
Or if not all so favored,
Obtain such grace of hours
That none should mow the grass there
While so confused with flowers.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
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—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)
“The mention of one apartment in a building naturally introduces an enquiry or discourse concerning the others: and if we think of a wound, we can scarcely forbear reflecting on the pain which follows it.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)