608 Fifth Avenue

608 Fifth Avenue, also known as the Goelet Building or Swiss Center Building, is an office building at Fifth Avenue and West 49th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, adjacent to Rockefeller Center. It was designed by Victor L. S. Hafner for the Goelet family, with Edward Hall Faile as structural engineer. The facade uses elements of both the Art Deco and International styles, while the lobby is designed exclusively in the Art Deco style. The building consists of a two-story base and an eight-story upper section, with a facade of green and white marble. The base includes storefronts while the upper stories contain offices. The second story is cantilevered from the bottom of the third story so the storefronts could be combined into a large department store if necessary. The building's elaborately designed lobby is divided into an entrance vestibule, an S-shaped outer lobby, and an elevator lobby. These spaces are decorated extensively with marble and aluminum, and the outer and elevator lobbies also include the Goelet family's crest. The three elevator cabs contain ornate marble and aluminum decorations. Prior to the construction of the present office building, Mary and Ogden Goelet lived in a mansion at 608 Fifth Avenue. The mansion was torn down in 1930, and Ogden's nephew Robert Walton Goelet built the office building on the site, which was finished in 1932. The structure was built while the construction of Rockefeller Center was ongoing, and its design was meant to complement that of the other buildings in Rockefeller Center. During the 1960s, the building was sold to the Korein family and was renovated. 608 Fifth Avenue was renamed the Swiss Center Building in 1966 after several Swiss companies leased space there. Both the lobby interior and the exterior were designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission as official city landmarks in 1992. The leasehold was sold to RFR Holding in 1998, and Vornado Realty Trust operated the retail space from 2013 to 2020.

608 Fifth Avenue is in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, on the southwestern corner of Fifth Avenue and 49th Street. The land lot is slightly L-shaped, covering 13,150 square feet (1,222 m2). The lot measures 70 feet (21 m) on Fifth Avenue to the east and 161.6 feet (49.3 m) on 49th Street to the north. The longer leg of the "L" extends west–east along 49th Street, while a shorter leg extends north–south along the western portion of the site. 608 Fifth Avenue is one of three buildings on the western side of Fifth Avenue between 48th and 49th Streets. Directly to the south is the Childs Restaurants building at 604 Fifth Avenue. The southern side of the block, 600 Fifth Avenue, was built in 1949–1952 and was later incorporated into Rockefeller Center. Other nearby buildings include 600 Fifth Avenue to the south, 1 Rockefeller Plaza to the west, the British Empire Building to the north, the Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store to the northeast, and 597 Fifth Avenue to the southeast. Fifth Avenue between 42nd Street and Central Park South (59th Street) was relatively undeveloped through the late 19th century. In the latter half of that century, mansions and other residences were constructed along the avenue. Among these were two country mansions that Edward H. Kendall designed for brothers Robert and Ogden Goelet, within one block of each other. The brothers were part of the Goelet family, a wealthy Dutch family that had founded the Chemical Bank. Robert's estate was at 589 Fifth Avenue, near present-day 48th Street, while Ogden's estate was at 608 Fifth Avenue one block north.

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