225 Park Avenue South (originally named the American Woolen Building for its tenant,

American Woolen Company The American Woolen Company is a designer, manufacturer and distributor of men’s and women’s worsted and woolen fabrics. Based in Stafford Springs, Connecticut, the company operates from the 160-year-old Warren Mills, which it acquired from Lo ...

) is an office building complex in the

Flatiron District The Flatiron District is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, named after the Flatiron Building at 23rd Street, Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Generally, the Flatiron District is bounded by 14th Street, Union Square and Green ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Located at the northeast corner of

Park Avenue South Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenu ...

and East 18th Street,'' Architects' and Builders' Magazine'', Volume 43, Issues 1-15. W.T. Comstock, 1911. p
127
Available on

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

. it is two blocks north of

Union Square Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

. The property includes the 19-story 225 Park Avenue South, as well as the 12-story 233 Park Avenue South. Orda Management owns the facility, which served as a temporary headquarters for the

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, PANYNJ; stylized, in logo since 2020, as Port Authority NY NJ, is a joint venture between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, established in 1921 through an interstate compact authorized ...

(PANYNJ) from 2001 to 2015 after its previous headquarters in the former

World Trade Center World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may refer to: Buildings * List of World Trade Centers * World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...

complex were destroyed in the

September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

. The complex also formerly had the headquarters of

Crown Publishing Group The Crown Publishing Group is a subsidiary of Penguin Random House that publishes across several fiction and non-fiction categories. Originally founded in 1933 as a remaindered books wholesaler called Outlet Book Company, the firm expanded into ...

Design

The 19-story-tall 225 Park Avenue South was designed by

Robert Henderson Robertson Robert Henderson Robertson (April 29, 1849 – June 3, 1919) was an American architect who designed numerous houses, institutional and commercial buildings, and churches. Life and career Robertson was born in Philadelphia of Scot ...

, of R.H. Robinson & Sons. The consulting engineer was C. T. Main.'' Architects' and Builders' Magazine'', Volume 43, Issues 1-15. W.T. Comstock, 1911. p
126
Available on

. "The American Woolen Building. 4th Avenue and 18th Street, New York." 225 has a total of of space. Built on a steel frame and with a limestone exterior, 225 has a ram's head at its main entrance, on Park Avenue. A freight entrance is on 19th Street.'' Architects' and Builders' Magazine'', Volume 43, Issues 1-15. W.T. Comstock, 1911. p
128
Available on

. "The American Woolen Building. 4th Avenue and 18th Street, New York." 225 had five elevators for general use for floors 1-13. There were six elevators intended for company and client use only, with two serving the basement through floor 18, one going to floor 19, and three going only to floor 14. The freight elevators in the rear, also only for company/client use, numbered four, with three of them also intended for human passengers. The 14th floor was used as the American Woolen Company's reception area. 233 Park Avenue South, to the north of 225, was constructed around the same time and is 12 stories tall. 233 has a brass ring at its main entrance.

History

Previously, the site was occupied by the 1878 Florence Apartment House. 225 Park Avenue South was built in 1909 as the American Woolen Building. Its address was initially 225 Fourth Avenue. The old address number was kept when the section of Fourth Avenue between 17th and 32nd Streets was renamed Park Avenue South in 1959. Historically. the

occupied floors 13-19. In the 1980s,

The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America is one of the largest mutual life insurance companies in the world. Based in Manhattan, it has approximately 8,000 employees in the United States and a network of over 3,000 financial representativ ...

signed a lease for . at 225/233 Park Avenue South, having outgrown previous space at their nearby headquarters, the Germania Life Insurance Company Building and its annex. In 1998, Guardian Life moved its headquarters to the

Financial District A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies and other related finance corporations have their head offices. In major cities, financial districts are often home to s ...

of Manhattan.

had its headquarters at 225 Park Avenue South, occupying of space.

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

received the space when it acquired the company. In 1990, Random House signaled intentions to sublease the space. In 2001, the

moved its headquarters to the 225 Park Avenue South complex after its previous headquarters, at 1 World Trade Center in the former

complex, were destroyed in the

. PANYNJ, which said it intended to use the facility only as a temporary headquarters, leased a total of in 225 Park Avenue South and 233 Park Avenue South. The Office of Medical Services was at 233 Park Avenue South. In 2014 and 2015, PANYNJ moved to 4 World Trade Center. The medical offices remained at 233 Park Avenue South, but in 2016 the board PANYNJ was scheduled to vote on a new location for those offices. Terence Cullen of ''

Commercial Observer Observer Media is an American online media company. The company was formed through several acquisitions, including acquisition of ''The New York Observer'' in 2007. Observer Media is based in Lower Manhattan, New York City, and was owned by busi ...

'' wrote that Facebook "likely" took former PANYNJ space. In 2014, Buzzfeed signed a lease for of space on floors 11 through 16. In 2016, Facebook signed a lease for of space in the building, with on floors 17-19. and other space between Floor 6 and Floor 10. A major renovation was executed after the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey departed; it was completed in 2017. , 97.9% of its space was leased. Its 10 tenants included

BuzzFeed BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. Ken ...

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

, and STV Inc.,Locations
" STV Inc. Retrieved on January 7, 2019. "225 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10003-1604" which occupied the largest spaces in the building.

References

External links

225 Park Avenue South
{{Coord, 40, 44, 15, N, 73, 59, 18, W, display=title Office buildings in Manhattan Port Authority of New York and New Jersey American Woolen Company Park Avenue