Soaring High at the Hearst Tower
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Architectural critics and real estate-obsessed New Yorkers have noted the beauty of the Hearst Tower designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Lord Norman Foster. One point about the atrium has been missed, however: It is a marvelous a setting for a party, an opinion reached at the reception the Hearst Corporation held Monday in honor of its new home.
It’s far from a trivial point. The headquarters are intended to reflect a corporation’s image.
“It was clear that our name was going to be on it and it had better be good. It was a heavy burden,” a director and former executive of the company, Gilbert Maurer, said of his mindset at the start of the project.
On this night, Mr. Maurer and his fellow Hearst executives invited plenty of partners, employees, and competitors to take in the results, including several members of the Newhouse family, who built their own fine headquarters in Times Square a few years back.
“We’re friendly,” Donald Newhouse said.
“This building ties for second place, with the Time Warner Building,” Mayor Bloomberg said, referring to the three headquarters opened by media companies in the past three years — leaving first place to the Cesar Pelli-designed Bloomberg LLP headquarters.
“For people in the publishing world, there’s a desire to appreciate aesthetic beauty and good architecture,” an industrial psychologist, Benjamin Dattner, said when told about the presence of rivals at the party. “To some extent everyone takes off their competitive hats and puts on their cultured New Yorker hats. There are all kinds of ways they can help each other.”
The building soared around the 800 attendees who congregated on the café level, and guests soared too as they made their way around the balcony, with a waterfall beneath them and the exposed façade of the original Hearst building designed by Joseph Urban surrounding them. The quality of the air, the sense of infinite light and space were quick mood lifters, as were the acrobats cascading on wires from the atrium ceiling and a performance by Stevie Wonder that lasted more than an hour. Creature comforts included living room settings designed by Bronson Van Wyck and heaps of food and drink prepared by Hudson Yards Catering under the direction of Michael Romano.
On the receiving line, the president and chief executive officer of the Hearst corporation, Victor Ganzi, reflected on his relationship to the new building. “It took a while to get there and it was worth it,” he said. “We sweated over everything. I can tell you where every screw is, every nut is. It’s nice to have that knowledge … and I’m ready to get back to work when the party is over.”
Non-Hearst employees talked about what the building means to the city. “This is the future of New York,” Senator Schumer said. “Building a new company headquarters here shows faith in New York. There’s also architectural grandeur that we don’t have enough of here in New York, and thirdly, this a green building. So it’s a win, win, win.”
The guest list included many Lincoln Center confreres of Hearst’s vice chairman Frank Bennack (who is also chairman of Lincoln Center) including the center’s president, Reynold Levy, and board members Katherine Farley and Susan Baker, as well as the chairman emeritus of Lincoln Center, Martin Segal.
Among those spotted were the dean of Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Robert Lavine, one of the first guests to check out the photography exhibit on the balcony that includes Arbus, Avedon, and Henri Cartier-Bresson; and Deborah Norville, using her cell phone to take a picture of her husband, Karl Wellner, with Christine and Stephen Schwarzman.
Great place for a party, I said to the editor of Esquire, David Granger.
“And a great place for breakfast,” Mr. Granger replied, noting the daily use of the space as the employee dining room.
Next Monday — and every Monday — the Hearst employees get a party just for them, in the Joseph Urban Theater off the atrium. That’s where Hearst holds its Monday Night Movies, with themes voted on by employees. This month the theme is “scary” and the movie Monday is “The Shining.”