SCOUTING
FIELD NOTES

The 40th St Philosophers

01/16/2009

One of my favorites bits in Times Square can be found on West 40th Street between Broadway and 6th. It’s two blocks from the main Times Square action, and you can feel the frantic energy vanish as soon as you turn onto the street.

If you look closely at the building to the left, you’ll see are five sculpted figures, each with his own throne of sorts, deep in thought, legs dangling:

I have no clue who these people are, or are supposed to represent. But the detail work on them is really incredible.

The building is 119 West 40th Street and was built in 1915 – I’m having trouble finding anything more than that. I believe that each of them may be holding a different representation of humanity; for example, the man on the right seems to be holding a cog of some sort, perhaps representing industry?

Seriously, the craftsmanship is amazing. It looks like these guys could suddenly stand up and climb off the ledge through the adjacent windows. I think their shoes are my favorite part:

The two above have more neutral expressions, whereas the first two seem somewhat troubled:

I like to think of these guys as philosophers, sitting perched on a building south of Times Square and eternally pondering the mysteries of the universe. Perhaps they’ve figured out why someone would voluntarily wait 3 hours in line for a table at the Olive Garden.

-SCOUT

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Jenny Islander

04/25/2013

Googling around turned up more info at Daytonian in Manhattan and Ephemeral New York. Originally there were (still are?) 12 allegorical figures on this building, 6 overlooking each street. Thrift holds a beehive, Exploration has a globe. I wonder what the other virtues are supposed to be.

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Jenny Islander

04/25/2013

These statues fascinate me because their clothing may be medieval, but their symbolism is thoroughly business-modern. If they were classical virtues, they would be Fortitude, Hope, etc., but these are like something out of a tycoon’s memoir: Thrift, Exploration, Industry, Learning… The theme suits the building, which was completed in 1915 and originally owned by a German immigrant who became rich. Maybe the statues really were a sort of memoir. Or maybe he told the architect, “Eh, put something nice at about this level, and I want it to look German.”

Does anybody have pictures and identification for all of them?

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CM4

10/25/2016

I use to work in this building (14th floor) so I felt obligated to do some research. The Lewisohn Building was built in 1913 and was Designed by architects Manicke & Franke for entrepreneur Phillip Lewisohn.

Below is a Copy and paste from this website
(http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2011/11/1913-lewisohn-building-119-west-40th.html)

In 1893 the Mendelssohn Glee Club, a group of all-male singers, moved into their grand new concert venue, Mendelssohn Hall at 119 West 40th Street. A gift of Alfred Corning Clark, the building was designed by Robert Henderson Robertson who would become known for his personalization of H. H. Richardson’s Romanesque Revival style.

Mendelssohn Hall drew crowds of up to 1,000 in the Empire-style auditorium and the upper floors were rented for social functions. The hall would not stand for long, however.

In 1911 Philip Lewisohn purchased the building for $310,000, announcing his intentions to build a 12-story loft “similar to the new Tilden Building” on the site. Before the year was up, his plans would have greatly expanded.

On April 3, 1912 The New York Times reported that Lewisohn had received a building loan of $1.1 million from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company to erect a skyscraper on the site of the Hall. By now the 12-story loft had changed to a 22-story structure that would stretch through the block from West 40th Street to 41st Street.

Lewisohn commissioned architects Manicke & Franke to design his new building as the area behind Bryant Park was rapidly transforming into an important manufacturing and commercial district.

On January 5, 1913 the New York American Annual Real Estate Review described the new Philip Lewisohn Building as “The largest commercial building north of 23d Street, being a whole block in depth.” The $1.2 million structure covered 28,000 square feet and dwarfed most of the surrounding buildings.

The rest of the info can be found here.
http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2011/11/1913-lewisohn-building-119-west-40th.html

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