General Electric Building by Eliot Cross & John Walter Cross

The General Electric Building, designed by John Walter Cross of Cross & Cross in the Art Deco style completed in 1931, with Gothic Revival ornamentation. It contains a 50-floor, 640-foot-tall stylized Gothic octagonal brick tower, with elaborate Art Deco decorations of lightning bolts showing the power of electricity. The tower is set back from the round-cornered base with elaborate masonry and architectural figural sculpture.
The building was designed to blend with the low Byzantine dome of the adjacent St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church on Park Avenue, with the same brick coloring and architectural terracotta decoration. The crown of the building, an example of Gothic tracery, is intended to represent electricity and radio waves. On the corner above the building's main entrance is a clock with the cursive GE logo and a pair of disembodied silver arms holding bolts of electricity.
The most striking feature of this building is the extravagant coronation, a curious mixture of Gothic spiers of limestone with brick undulations and filigree ornaments in the shape of rays that represent the power of radio transmission waves sent. At night, this “crown” is illuminated from the inside, so that the appearance resembles a giant torch and makes the building one of the most unique city skyscrapers.
The building exemplifies the characteristics of the innovative adaptation of traditional Art Deco motifs to modern forms. The main objective was to express through architecture the power of radio and the importance of the company as a corporate entity.
On the exterior walls waves, lightning and faces of the “electrical minds” project outwardly joining the exterior trim to transmit this symbolism directly. This representation of the client through the architectural ornament became a signature for Cross & Cross
The project design combines verticality with the decorative complexity of the Art Deco style. The building is a sophisticated piece of urban infill that responds to the context of the adjacent building and is the best example of the Art Deco style in New York City.
Topped with a crown of needles, this Art Deco skyscraper is decorated with diagonal and zigzag designs that evoke associations with electricity. Its brick veneer with glazed terra cotta ornaments compliments the materials of the adjacent church of St. Bartholomew.
With much of its base hidden behind the church it is a rare example of a friendly contextual juxtaposition of two buildings of different scale, type, and age.
By todays standards, the lobby is unrelated to the proverbial tower that crowns the building and is a small, quiet space.
The entrance hall has a vaulted ceiling, aluminum plated sunburst motifs and light pink marble walls. Lamps are aquamarine glass. There is a vitality to the aluminum vaults which remains free of decoration. The severity of vertical lines intersects the curves of the roof with a bold sharpness.
The architect John W. Cross put a major emphasis in this space: “… our design unconsciously borrows from the architectural past, but our imagination is looking toward the future …”
The building is conventional from a technical point of view. It is a skyscraper steel structure covered with brick and terra cotta.
The slender octagonal tower of the General Electric Building rises from the twenty-sixth floor of the building, away from the silhouettes of the adjacent buildings. The unique needle characterizes the skyscraper as one of the most distinctive buildings of the Manhattan skyline.
The base of red granite rises three levels, fifty floors covered with terracotta brick of orange and variegated shades rising slightly. On the facade of the ground floor, brick combined with large slabs of red marble is dotted with numerous ornamental pieces of steel and in some sectors form rounded walls that highlight the manual work done in the period.
Inside the lobby, though small for the structure that rises above it, contains elaborate masonry, walls covered with pink marble slabs, combined with natural color and black marble, around the elevators. These pieces are carved with motifs characteristic of art deco and decorated with numerous pieces of aluminum and lamps of the same art deco style.
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[@SWExplore]

The General Electric Building is an amazing example of Art Deco architecture! Ignore the comment about "terrible AI narration" below because it is irrelevant and not on point. The building itself steals the entire show hands down!!

[@miketackabery7521]

Gorgeous building. Astonishing decoration...
...and horrendous AI narration.

[@ericculver1718]

Terrible AI narration

[@ericculver1718]

You may notice that the "narrator" never takes a breath, never phrases a sentence according to punctuation. Miserable.