COMMENT: How do you feel about the GM building that replaced this Gilded Age skyscraper hotel - is it iconic its own right, or was it a mistake for New York to demolish the Savoy-Plaza?
Is just a non-descript, charater-less monolith of a building with no importance or elegance to anyone. If it were removed today, no one would notice it. That is the description of a non-entity
In the 1960s in New York City (where I grew up) the city lost many historic buildings but the one structure that started the Landmarks Preservation movement was when Pennsylvania Station was unceremoniously demolished to make way for the the new but atrocious Madison Square Garden in 1968. There was another building in Manhattan the Savoy Plaza Hotel which stood right across Fifth Avenue from the Plaza Hotel that was also demolished in 1964 to make way for another behemoth of a building the General Motors Building. The Savoy Plaza Hotel was a 33-story skyscraper hotel overlooking Grand Army Plaza near Central Park. It was designed by one of the most prestigious architectural firms of its day McKim, Mead & White and opened its doors on October 1, 1927. The Savoy Plaza replaced Ralph S. Townsend's Hotel Savoy of 1892 and Alfred Zucker's Bolkenhayn Apartments of 1895. Facing Henry J. Hardenbergh's Plaza Hotel (1907), it marked the second major step toward the establishment of the Grand Army Plaza as the city's major focus. Despite the vast bulk of the Savoy-Plaza's French Renaissance design--the style was chosen to harmonize with that of the Plaza Hotel as well as Bergdorf Goodman store group designed by Buchman and Kahn. The Savoy-Plaza building conveyed a considerable sense of upward lift. This was in part due to the ingenious design that employed an H-shaped plan culminating in an unconventional proportioned nine-story-high U-shaped tower crowned along its north-south axis by a steep pitched roof terminating in two lofty chimneys. Throughout the building there is a refinement of proportion, a satisfactory expression of a vertical, and yet essentially a design in which the horizontal requirement of classicism is recognized and upheld. Along with other buildings in the area, such as the Sherry-Netherland Hotel (1927, Architects: Schultze & Weaver with Buchman & Kahn), the Plaza Hotel (1907, Architect was Henry Janeway Hardenbergh) and The Pierre Hotel (1930, Architects: Schultze & Weaver). The Savoy Plaza was built at a cost of $30 million dollars. Paramount Pictures founder Adolph Zukor and his wife occupied the penthouse at the top of the Savoy-Plaza for many years. The top of the building was sometimes referred to as his rooftop chateau, with its distinctive double chimneys and slanted roof. In 1958, the Savoy-Plaza was purchased by Hilton Hotels and continued to operate under the name The Savoy Hilton. In August 1964 it was announced that the Savoy-Plaza Hotel where it was part of one of the world's best-known built ensembles would be demolished to make way for the new General Motors Building. In January 1965 a group of women which included novelist Fannie Hurst (author of Back Street and Imitation Of Life) along with Mrs. John A. Warner, she was the daughter of former governor Alfred E. Smith, formed a preservationist committee called "Save Our Landmarks!--Save The Plaza Square". Soon "socially prominent women and financially potent women stockholders threatened a $17-billion-a-year giant of American industry with instant destruction unless it abandoned its plan to erect what they called a tombstone in the Savoy-Plaza's stead". Here was a group of ladies not generally considered to be revolutionary threatening to abstain from the purchasing of brand-new Cadillac cars, until this beloved landmark was saved. Nevertheless, the following year the Savoy-Plaza gave way to the wrecking ball. Lost of the Savoy-Plaza provoked a legitimate fear that there would be more demolitions in the area. In August 1968 the City Planning Commission announced that it would rezone a three-block area around Grand Army Plaza to prohibit office buildings from being developed. In December 1969 the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Plaza Hotel a landmark, and five years later, in July 1974, it designated Grand Army Plaza designed by architects Carrere & Hastings a landmark. In 1965, and construction began on the 48-story General Motors Building, designed by Edward Durell Stone. The General Motors building will face the historic Plaza Hotel across Fifth Avenue. None of the buildings in the area, including the Sherry Netherland Hotel, the Pierre Hotel, Bergdorf Goodman, Tiffany's and others, are in the style of steel and glass that has so changed the vista along Park Avenue in recent years. Ada Louise Huxtable who was the New York Times Architecture critic was quoted as such, "Until the first blow fell, no one was convinced that Pennslvania Station really would be demolished, or that New York would permit this monumental act of vandalism against one of the largest and finest landmarks of its age of Roman elegance. Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves. Even when we had Pennslyania Station, we couldn’t afford to keep it clean. We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tin-horn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed"
Although I was born decades later than the heyday of such gems as the much-missed original Pennsylvania Station and the Savoy-Plaza, I have grown up absorbed by thoughts of their phantom presence. At least pioneering nutritionist Gayelord Hauser's menus for the Savoy-Plaza can be recreated--his elegant lunch menu started with a gin-and-grapefruit cocktail. Nice.
How can you talk about the destruction of the Savoy leading to the creation of the Landmarks Preservation committee, when it was the much more famous original Pennsylvania station’s destruction that truly led to that committee’s establishment?
There is no sense of history when we loose our landmarks,we sacrifice everything for money and that is our identity today unfortunately ! And people wonder why they are always traveling to admire the old cities in Europe ,there is a lot of history preserve up there and it is beautiful to experience !
If only he could master the correct way to refer to a year...........the first time I've ever heard '1880s' as one thousand, eight hundred and eighty years. I'm totally flummoxed by mathematics, even on a really basic level. Edit: I see he learned towards the end. I don't know if I should be impressed, perplexed, pour a stiff drink or contemplate an existential midlife crisis? Where's my bottle of Cointreau?
My feelings for the GM HQ bldg are about the same as the faceless glass and steel mess that occupies the site of the original Penn station. Both of the new structures are quite forgetable.
What are you talking about? The destruction of the WTC was an act ot terrorism, not a demolition project? Are you completely clueless or have you just arrived from Mars?
Huge loss for New York City ,the Savoy was a beautiful building,can we imagine Central Park without the Plaza ? The square block of GM building couldn’t be the most ugly replacement of a jewel of times gone !
I think this hotel should have been saved.This name SAVOY must of been a popular name,as here in St.Paul MN had a building called the Savoy Inn,this building became a pizza place,till the owner died.This is a local chain.This location is now a homeless center.
Fans of the writings of Ayn Rand would applaude the demolition. I prefer ithe Savoy to the booring FM building. Does anyone remeber the Autopub next to the Sassoon salon? It's all now the Apple Store.
The destruction of a building of such quality designed by one of the most famous Architectural firms in U.S. history was an outage, however the city was not bothered by that and also suffered the loss of their masterpiece, Penn Station. Ok there were exceptional circumstances surrounding the Station and needed the Federal Government to intervene but that wasn’t going to happen, particularly in the 60’s. The Singer Building, being a very early skyscraper type was another loss and the “Cathedral of the Motion Picture”, the fabulous Roxy Theatre was torn down for a totally banal glass faced office building. Bad times for the history of NYC.
The GM building is a dull one, nonetheless the property tycoons still find it irresistible long past the time it had started to look dated, which it did almost immediately. Apple has their prestigious NY store there, which was an improvement architecturally. Durell Stone was a capable architect in certain instances. There is another particularly dull high rise of his in Chicago, and I wonder if these two were fashioned as comments on the state of modern architecture. The NY building he was most famous for, at Columbus Circle, has been altered to unrecognizeability.
@@pauljackman7137 I rather liked the Kennedy Center, in 1983 when I went there. I mean I guess the thing was pretty much programmed by the time he got to it: three auditoriums in a row. I wonder if they included the the ambulatory thing all around. I enjoyed that as well. There were recent plans to "modernize" the landscaping and vehicular approach that looked really dumb to me. Maybe the intent was to make it look so bad they'd need a new Kennedy Center. Which brings me to Union Station, and the Gi-normous new waiting room designed (deliberately) to sort of belittle the whole affair. The people in charge, they hate great public buildings like that, it has a deleterious effect on their "class struggle" theming. I'd always thought they did good in the last 1980's installment, till I looked a little closer. The y chopped off about 60 feet on either end of the concourse, and now of course there's no way to put them back because they sold off the property. They had big doors there to speed up traffic to/from the street.
While I am a consumer of GM products and an enthusiast of many of their works… it is beyond refutable that a path of destruction follows GM all over this country.
We even destroyed the irreplaceable Penn Station, and were about to also destroy the Grand Central! New York has no mercy on buildings (or people). One thing, however: you keep noting "European" taste and folks as if they were the ultimate arbiter of elegance. They are not. You are an Englishman yourself and I understand that, but Americans have been that arbiter since the onset of the 20th century, not the Europeans.
COMMENT: How do you feel about the GM building that replaced this Gilded Age skyscraper hotel - is it iconic its own right, or was it a mistake for New York to demolish the Savoy-Plaza?
Is just a non-descript, charater-less monolith of a building with no importance or elegance to anyone. If it were removed today, no one would notice it. That is the description of a non-entity
The Savoy Plaza and the Singer Building could have been converted into amazing apartment buildings .
In the 1960s in New York City (where I grew up) the city lost many historic buildings but the one structure that started the Landmarks Preservation movement was when Pennsylvania Station was unceremoniously demolished to make way for the the new but atrocious Madison Square Garden in 1968. There was another building in Manhattan the Savoy Plaza Hotel which stood right across Fifth Avenue from the Plaza Hotel that was also demolished in 1964 to make way for another behemoth of a building the General Motors Building.
The Savoy Plaza Hotel was a 33-story skyscraper hotel overlooking Grand Army Plaza near Central Park. It was designed by one of the most prestigious architectural firms of its day McKim, Mead & White and opened its doors on October 1, 1927. The Savoy Plaza replaced Ralph S. Townsend's Hotel Savoy of 1892 and Alfred Zucker's Bolkenhayn Apartments of 1895. Facing Henry J. Hardenbergh's Plaza Hotel (1907), it marked the second major step toward the establishment of the Grand Army Plaza as the city's major focus. Despite the vast bulk of the Savoy-Plaza's French Renaissance design--the style was chosen to harmonize with that of the Plaza Hotel as well as Bergdorf Goodman store group designed by Buchman and Kahn. The Savoy-Plaza building conveyed a considerable sense of upward lift. This was in part due to the ingenious design that employed an H-shaped plan culminating in an
unconventional proportioned nine-story-high U-shaped tower crowned along its north-south axis by a steep pitched roof terminating in two lofty chimneys.
Throughout the building there is a refinement of proportion, a satisfactory expression of a vertical, and yet essentially a design in which the horizontal requirement of classicism is recognized and upheld.
Along with other buildings in the area, such as the Sherry-Netherland Hotel (1927, Architects: Schultze & Weaver with Buchman & Kahn), the Plaza Hotel (1907, Architect was Henry Janeway Hardenbergh) and The Pierre Hotel (1930, Architects: Schultze & Weaver). The Savoy Plaza was built at a cost of $30 million dollars. Paramount Pictures founder Adolph Zukor and his wife occupied the penthouse at the top of the Savoy-Plaza for many years. The top of the building was sometimes referred to as his rooftop chateau, with its distinctive double chimneys and slanted roof. In 1958, the Savoy-Plaza was purchased by Hilton Hotels and continued to operate under the name The Savoy Hilton.
In August 1964 it was announced that the Savoy-Plaza Hotel where it was part of one of the world's best-known built ensembles would be demolished to make way for the new General Motors Building. In January 1965 a group of women which included novelist Fannie Hurst (author of Back Street and Imitation Of Life) along with Mrs. John A. Warner, she was the daughter of former governor Alfred E. Smith, formed a preservationist committee called "Save Our Landmarks!--Save The Plaza Square". Soon "socially prominent women and financially potent women stockholders threatened a $17-billion-a-year giant of American industry with instant destruction unless it abandoned its plan to erect what they called a tombstone in the Savoy-Plaza's stead". Here was a group of ladies not generally considered to be revolutionary threatening to abstain from the purchasing of brand-new Cadillac cars, until this beloved landmark was saved. Nevertheless, the following year the Savoy-Plaza gave way to the wrecking ball.
Lost of the Savoy-Plaza provoked a legitimate fear that there would be more demolitions in the area. In August 1968 the City Planning Commission announced that it would rezone a three-block area around Grand Army Plaza to prohibit office buildings from being developed. In December 1969 the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Plaza Hotel a landmark, and five years later, in July 1974, it designated Grand Army Plaza designed by architects Carrere & Hastings a landmark.
In 1965, and construction began on the 48-story General Motors Building, designed by Edward Durell Stone. The General Motors building will face the historic Plaza Hotel across Fifth Avenue. None of the buildings in the area, including the Sherry Netherland Hotel, the Pierre Hotel, Bergdorf Goodman, Tiffany's and others, are in the style of steel and glass that has so changed the vista along Park Avenue in recent years.
Ada Louise Huxtable who was the New York Times Architecture critic was quoted as such, "Until the first blow fell, no one was convinced that Pennslvania Station really would be demolished, or that New York would permit this monumental act of vandalism against one of the largest and finest landmarks of its age of Roman elegance. Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves. Even when we had Pennslyania Station, we couldn’t afford to keep it clean. We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tin-horn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed"
Although I was born decades later than the heyday of such gems as the much-missed original Pennsylvania Station and the Savoy-Plaza, I have grown up absorbed by thoughts of their phantom presence. At least pioneering nutritionist Gayelord Hauser's menus for the Savoy-Plaza can be recreated--his elegant lunch menu started with a gin-and-grapefruit cocktail. Nice.
How can you talk about the destruction of the Savoy leading to the creation of the Landmarks Preservation committee, when it was the much more famous original Pennsylvania station’s destruction that truly led to that committee’s establishment?
There is no sense of history when we loose our landmarks,we sacrifice everything for money and that is our identity today unfortunately ! And people wonder why they are always traveling to admire the old cities in Europe ,there is a lot of history preserve up there and it is beautiful to experience !
What a tragic loss
The AI voice is interesting, I'm not complaining...
If only he could master the correct way to refer to a year...........the first time I've ever heard '1880s' as one thousand, eight hundred and eighty years. I'm totally flummoxed by mathematics, even on a really basic level.
Edit: I see he learned towards the end. I don't know if I should be impressed, perplexed, pour a stiff drink or contemplate an existential midlife crisis? Where's my bottle of Cointreau?
😭 @prudence
THE GM BUILDING IS AN HORROR
That GM building is the epitome of UGLY! However what would be the cost of maintaining the Savoy, improvements and upgrades to make it functional?
My feelings for the GM HQ bldg are about the same as the faceless glass and steel mess that occupies the site of the original Penn station.
Both of the new structures are quite forgetable.
What about the Pennsylvania Hotel?
You failed to reference the World Trade Center Towers. This was a demolition project with no regard for New York or its people.
What are you talking about? The destruction of the WTC was an act ot terrorism, not a demolition project? Are you completely clueless or have you just arrived from Mars?
Huge loss for New York City ,the Savoy was a beautiful building,can we imagine Central Park without the Plaza ? The square block of GM building couldn’t be the most ugly replacement of a jewel of times gone !
Victor Meldrew's brief career as a doorman is a completely unexpected and sly insertion here!
I think this hotel should have been saved.This name SAVOY must of been a popular name,as here in St.Paul MN had a building called the Savoy Inn,this building became a pizza place,till the owner died.This is a local chain.This location is now a homeless center.
Fans of the writings of Ayn Rand would applaude the demolition. I prefer ithe Savoy to the booring FM building. Does anyone remeber the Autopub next to the Sassoon salon? It's all now the Apple Store.
5:50 "at a staggering costs of 30 million dollars a fortune in those days" and still a fortune in these days
I thought it was still there. Is the Fairmont Plaza Hotel a different one from the Savoy-Plaza? They look the same to me.
It was a big mistake to demolish it. Unique landmark.
Narrators voice is good. It suits the great buildings of America’s boom period and the characters of the 1850’s to 1950’s
Thank God😢
The destruction of a building of such quality designed by one of the most famous Architectural firms in U.S. history was an outage, however the city was not bothered by that and also suffered the loss of their masterpiece, Penn Station. Ok there were exceptional circumstances surrounding the Station and needed the Federal Government to intervene but that wasn’t going to happen, particularly in the 60’s. The Singer Building, being a very early skyscraper type was another loss and the “Cathedral of the Motion Picture”, the fabulous Roxy Theatre was torn down for a totally banal glass faced office building. Bad times for the history of NYC.
The GM building is a dull one, nonetheless the property tycoons still find it irresistible long past the time it had started to look dated, which it did almost immediately. Apple has their prestigious NY store there, which was an improvement architecturally. Durell Stone was a capable architect in certain instances. There is another particularly dull high rise of his in Chicago, and I wonder if these two were fashioned as comments on the state of modern architecture. The NY building he was most famous for, at Columbus Circle, has been altered to unrecognizeability.
Stone also designed the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. It is the GM building on its side: a dull-witted horizontal marble box.
@@pauljackman7137 I rather liked the Kennedy Center, in 1983 when I went there. I mean I guess the thing was pretty much programmed by the time he got to it: three auditoriums in a row. I wonder if they included the the ambulatory thing all around. I enjoyed that as well. There were recent plans to "modernize" the landscaping and vehicular approach that looked really dumb to me. Maybe the intent was to make it look so bad they'd need a new Kennedy Center. Which brings me to Union Station, and the Gi-normous new waiting room designed (deliberately) to sort of belittle the whole affair. The people in charge, they hate great public buildings like that, it has a deleterious effect on their "class struggle" theming. I'd always thought they did good in the last 1980's installment, till I looked a little closer. The y chopped off about 60 feet on either end of the concourse, and now of course there's no way to put them back because they sold off the property. They had big doors there to speed up traffic to/from the street.
While I am a consumer of GM products and an enthusiast of many of their works… it is beyond refutable that a path of destruction follows GM all over this country.
Greed
We even destroyed the irreplaceable Penn Station, and were about to also destroy the Grand Central! New York has no mercy on buildings (or people). One thing, however: you keep noting "European" taste and folks as if they were the ultimate arbiter of elegance. They are not. You are an Englishman yourself and I understand that, but Americans have been that arbiter since the onset of the 20th century, not the Europeans.
So you're saying a beautiful building was in the site of the current ugly GM building.
😂
They shouldn't have demolished the old hotel 😮