Emery Roth ( hu, Róth Imre, July 17, 1871 – August 20, 1948) was an American architect of

Hungarian-Jewish The history of the Jews in Hungary dates back to at least the Kingdom of Hungary, with some records even predating the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895 CE by over 600 years. Written sources prove that Jewish communities lived i ...

descent who designed many of the definitive New York City hotels and

apartment building An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ...

s of the 1920s and 1930s, incorporating Beaux-Arts and

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

details. His sons continued in the family enterprise, largely expanding the firm under the name Emery Roth & Sons.

Life and career

Born in Gálszécs,

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

(now

Sečovce Sečovce (; hu, Gálszécs; uk, Сечівці) is a town in the Trebišov District in the Košice Region of south-eastern Slovakia. History The town was first mentioned in year 1255 on the list of king Béla IV of Hungary. In 1494, a Roman Ca ...

, Slovakia) to a Jewish family, he emigrated to the United States at the age of 13 after his family fell into poverty upon his father's death. He began his architectural apprenticeship as a draftsman in the Chicago offices of

Burnham & Root Burnham and Root was one of Chicago's most famous architectural companies of the nineteenth century. It was established by Daniel Hudson Burnham and John Wellborn Root. During their eighteen years of partnership, Burnham and Root designed and b ...

, working on the

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordi ...

of 1893. At the Exposition Roth also designed one of his first solo projects; a pavilion that housed a chocolatier. There he met

Richard Morris Hunt Richard Morris Hunt (October 31, 1827 – July 31, 1895) was an American architect of the nineteenth century and an eminent figure in the history of American architecture. He helped shape New York City with his designs for the 1902 entrance fa� ...

, who was impressed with his skills and invited Roth to work in his office in New York. Following Hunt's premature death in 1895, Roth moved to the office of Ogden Codman, Jr., a designer and decorator with a Newport clientele. In the

interwar years In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second World War. The interwar period was relative ...

, the firm of Emery Roth delivered some of the most influential examples of architecture for

apartment house An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ...

s in the at-the-time fashionable beaux art-style, especially in

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 ...

. Many of his most notable projects are located on the Upper West Side, specifically Central Park West which is home to the San Remo, the Beresford, the Ardsley, amongst others. In 1938, Roth included his sons Julian and Richard as partners.

Buildings designed

211 Central Park West (The Beresford) by David Shankbone

Emery Roth & Sons

Despite the fact that Roth's sons, Julian and Richard, had joined the firm many years earlier, it was not until 1947 that the firm's name was changed to Emery Roth & Sons, approximately one year before Roth's death. Julian (1901–1992) specialized in construction costs and building materials and technology, while Richard (1904–1987) was named the firm's principal architect. In the 1950s and 1960s Emery Roth & Sons became the most influential

architectural firm In the United States, an architectural firm or architecture firm is a business that employs one or more licensed architects and practices the profession of architecture; while in South Africa, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark and other countri ...

in New York and contributed substantially in changing the appearance of Midtown and

Lower Manhattan Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...

. In that particular period of time Emery Roth & Sons designed dozens of speculative office buildings, mostly with curtain wall facades, which soon became a ubiquitous feature of the city. Beginning in the mid-1960s, the firm was also hired as associate architects in large-scale projects like the

Pan Am Building The MetLife Building (also 200 Park Avenue and formerly the Pan Am Building) is a skyscraper at Park Avenue and 45th Street, north of Grand Central Terminal, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed in the Internation ...

(1963), the

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 ...

(1966–1973) and the Citicorp Center (1977). In the early 1960s, Richard Roth's son, Richard Roth, Jr. (b. 1933) became the third generation to join the firm, eventually rising to chief architect CEO and shareholder. As the firm expanded and diversified over six decades, it remained a family business through the 1990s. In 1988 Richard Roth Jr's daughter Robyn Roth-Moise joined the firm as comptroller. Richard Roth Jr's son Richard Lee Roth joined the firm in 1982 and became the chief specification writer for Emery Roth & Sons. Both retired from the firm when Richard Roth Jr retired and was replaced as the company's CEO in 1993 by Robert Sobel, Roth's cousin. Only three years later, in 1996, the firm ceased to operate, apparently because of

financial distress Financial distress is a term in corporate finance used to indicate a condition when promises to creditors of a company are broken or honored with difficulty. If financial distress cannot be relieved, it can lead to bankruptcy. Financial distres ...

. Emery's great-grandson Richard Lee Roth currently works in the architectural profession and resides in South Florida. The extensive architectural records and papers of both Emery Roth and Emery Roth & Sons are now held in the Department of Drawings & Archives at the

Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library The Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library is a library located in Avery Hall on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University in the New York City. It is the largest architecture library in the world. Serving Columbia's Graduate Schoo ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

Work by Emery Roth & Sons

300 East 57th Street 300 East 57th Street is an apartment building on the corner of East 57th Street and Second Avenue in the Midtown neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Designed by Emery Roth and completed in November 1947, it was one of the first new luxur ...

(1947) * Paris Theater & Office Building (1948) * 715 Park Avenue (1949) * 945 Fifth Avenue Apartments (1949) * Look Building, 488 Madison Avenue (1949) * 40 Park Avenue (1950) * 45 East End Avenue Apartments (1950) * 85 East End Avenue, NE corner of E83rd St (1950) * 575 Madison Avenue (1950) * 2 Fifth Avenue (1952) * 380 Madison Avenue (1953) * 30 Park Avenue (1954) * 555 Fifth Avenue (1954) * 589 Fifth Avenue (1954) * National Distillers Building (1954) * 430 Park Avenue (Renovation) (1954) * Baruch Houses (1954–1959) * 460 Park Avenue (1955) * Bank of Montreal Building (1955) * Colgate-Palmolive Building (1955) * Davies Building (1955) * 156 William Street (1956) * 415 Madison Avenue (1956) * 485 Lexington Avenue (1956) * 1430 Broadway (1956) * 123 William Street (1957) * 630 Third Avenue (1958) * 750 Third Avenue (1958) * 400 Madison Avenue (1958) * General Reinsurance Building (1958) * 100 Church Street (1958) * 166 East 63rd Street (Beekman Town House) (1959) * 2 Broadway (1959) *

10 Lafayette Square 10 Lafayette Square, also known as the Tishman Building, is a high-rise office tower located in Lafayette Square in Buffalo, New York. Completed in 1959, it is the thirteenth-tallest building in Buffalo, standing at 263 feet (80 m) and 20 sto ...

(

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...

) (1959) * 355 Lexington Avenue (1959) *

Bronx High School of Science The Bronx High School of Science, commonly called Bronx Science, is a public specialized high school in The Bronx in New York City. It is operated by the New York City Department of Education. Admission to Bronx Science involves passing the Spec ...

(1959) * Harriman National Bank Building (1959) * Lorillard Building (1959) * East Ohio Building (

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, Ohio) (1959) * 10 East 70th Street Apartments (1960) * 80 Pine Street (1960) *

Imperial House A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family,''Oxford English Dictionary'', "dynasty, ''n''." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1897. usually in the context of a monarchical system, but sometimes also appearing in republics. A d ...

, 150 East 69th Street (1960) * Mutual of America Building (1960) * 850 Third Avenue (1961) * Pfizer Building (1961) * Diamond National Building (1961) * 60 Broad Street (1962) * 215 East 68th Apartments (1962) * 1180 Sixth Avenue (1962) * Bankers Trust Building (1962) * Tower East Apartments (1962) * Hanover Bank Building (1962) * 1212 Sixth Avenue (1963) * 250 Broadway (1963) * 605 Third Avenue, (f/k/a

Neuberger Berman Neuberger Berman Group LLC is a private, independent, employee-owned investment management firm. The firm manages equities, fixed income, private equity and hedge fund portfolios for global institutional investors, advisors and high-net-worth in ...

Building, originally the Burroughs Building) (1963) * 845 Third Avenue (1963) * 1290 Avenue of the Americas, the

building (1963) *

MetLife Building The MetLife Building (also 200 Park Avenue and formerly the Pan Am Building) is a skyscraper at Park Avenue and 45th Street, north of Grand Central Terminal, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed in the Internation ...

(Pan Am Building) (1963) *

Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) was a U.S. investment bank founded by William H. Donaldson, Richard Jenrette, and Dan Lufkin in 1959. Its businesses included securities underwriting; sales and trading; investment and merchant banking; fina ...

Building (1963) *

277 Park Avenue 277 Park Avenue is an office building in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It stands on the east side of Park Avenue between East 47th and 48th Streets, and is tall, with 50 floors. It is tied with two other buildings, 55 Wat ...

(1964) * 641 Lexington Avenue (1964) * Harcourt, Brace & World Building (1964) * Sterling Drug Company Building (90 Park Avenue) (1964) * 600 Madison Avenue (1965) * Bankers Trust Annex Building (1965) * Xerox Building (1965) * MGM Building (1965) * Leverett Saltonstall Building (1965) * Financial Times Building (1965) * 675 Third Avenue (1966) * MacMillan Building (1966) * 299 Park Avenue (a.k.a. Westvaco Building) (1967) * 909 Third Avenue (1967) * ITT-American Building (1967) *

General Motors Building A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED O ...

(1968) * 10 Hanover Square (1969) * 100 Wall Street (1969) * 345 Park Avenue (1969) * 1700 Broadway (1969) *

1345 Avenue of the Americas 1345 Avenue of the Americas, also known as the Building, is a -tall, 50-story skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Located on Sixth Avenue between 54th and 55th Streets, the building was built by Fisher Brothers and designed by ...

(1969) * Random House Building (1969) * Schroder Building (1969) * Emigrant Savings Bank Building (1969) * 77 Water Street (1970) * 1633 Broadway (Paramount Plaza) (1970) * 1133 Avenue of the Americas (formerly Interchem Building) (1970) * 22 Cortlandt Street (1971) * 200 Water Street (a.k.a. 127 John Street) (1971) * 600 Third Avenue (1971) *

888 Seventh Avenue 888 Seventh Avenue is a 628 ft (191m) tall modern-style office skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan which was completed in 1969 and has 46 floors. Emery Roth & Sons designed the building. 888 Seventh Avenue is "L"-shaped in plan, with wings ext ...

(1971) * Capitol-EMI Building (1971) *

Park Lane Hotel (New York) The Park Lane Hotel is a New York City luxury hotel at 36 Central Park South, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Midtown Manhattan, overlooking Central Park. Constructed in 1971, the hotel was designed by the prolific architecture firm, Emer ...

(1971) * J.P. Stevens Company Tower (1971) *

One Battery Park Plaza 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

(1971) * 450 Park Avenue (1972) *

55 Water Street 55 Water Street is a skyscraper on the East River in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The 53-story, structure was completed in 1972. Designed by Emery Roth and Sons, the building was de ...

(1972) * 747 Third Avenue (1972) * Harper & Row Building (1972) *

One Dag Hammarskjold Plaza 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1 ...

(1972) * North American Plywood Building (1972) * Franklin National Bank Building (1972) *

(1972–1973) with

Minoru Yamasaki was an American architect, best known for designing the original World Trade Center in New York City and several other large-scale projects. Yamasaki was one of the most prominent architects of the 20th century. He and fellow architect Edward D ...

* 100 East Pratt Street Building (1973) * Blue Cross Building (1973) * Merchandise Mart Building (1973) * Sovereign Apartments (1973) * Winstar Building and Addition (1974) * 100 William Street (1974) *

Citigroup Center The Citigroup Center (formerly Citicorp Center and also known by its address, 601 Lexington Avenue) is an office skyscraper in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Built in 1977 to house the headquarters of Citibank, it is tal ...

(1977) * Helmsley Palace Hotel (1981) * Crystal Pavilion (1982) * 575 Fifth Avenue (1983) * 900 Third Avenue (1983) * 1155 Avenue of the Americas (1984) * Manhattan Tower (1985) * Symphony House Apartments (1986) * Fifth Avenue Tower (1986) * 7 World Trade Center (1987) * Ellington Apartments (1987) *

17 State Street 17 State Street is a 42-story office building along State Street and Battery Park in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Completed in 1988, it was designed by Roy Gee for Emery Roth and Sons for developers William Kauf ...

(1988) *

1585 Broadway 1585 Broadway, also the Morgan Stanley Building, is a 42-story office building on Times Square in the Theater District neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The building was designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects and Emery R ...

(1989) * 546 Fifth Avenue (1990) * Oxford Condominiums (1990)

References

External links

Emery Roth architectural drawings and autobiography, circa 1907-1949 (bulk circa 1920-1939)
held in th

Emery Roth & Sons architectural records and papers, 1906-1996 (bulk 1951-1994)
held in th