Could you believe that this mixed-use tower is home to both a global publishing giant and luxury apartments? This is the Random House Tower. Also known as the Park Imperial Apartments, it stands 684 feet tall. The Random House Tower has 52 stories in Midtown Manhattan.
SL Green Realty and Ivanhoé Cambridge own the Random House Tower. Since its opening, Random House has leased the office portion. Since 2016, Penguin Random House, its parent company, has also made it their global headquarters. This inspired the building’s name. The upper floors house a luxury apartment complex. The Penguin Random House entrance is on Broadway. It occupies the lower 27 floors. The apartment complex entrance is on West 56th Street.
Notice how the Random House Tower sits on a trapezoidal block between 55th and 56th Streets. It follows the angle of Broadway. The jagged setbacks improve views of Central Park.
The Random House Tower divides into two parts. The office floors are on the 2nd through 26th stories. Residential floors occupy the 27th through 51st stories. The first floor has 32000 square feet of retail space. Separate architects designed each section. Skidmore, Owings and Merrill designed the office portion. It features a steel frame. Ismael Leyva Architects and Adam D. Tihany designed the residential portion. It has a concrete frame. The two sections do not entirely line up. Trusses were built on the 26th and 27th floors to transfer the load.
The residential section of the Random House Tower has 130 apartments. The apartments feature ten-foot ceilings. There are five penthouses of up to 2970 square feet. For marketing, the residential floors are numbered 48 to 70. Rapper P. Diddy and New York Yankees pitcher Randy Johnson were among the first tenants.
Did you know the Random House Tower has two fluid tuned mass dampers? They are designed to dampen building sway. They are located on the 50th-floor mechanical room. The dampers have 16-inch-thick concrete walls. They measure 20 feet wide by 70 feet long and 12 feet tall. One tank runs west-east. The other runs north-south.
Random House once planned to build a tower at 45th and Broadway. It would have been across from its parent company Bertelsmann’s headquarters. A neon-lighted skyway would have connected them across 45th Street. However, the owner of the property withdrew from the plans after long negotiations. The company then spoke with various developers. In 1999, they decided on Stephen M. Ross’s project at Broadway and 55th Street. It was already under construction. Subsequently, they assigned architects to develop a new design for the Random House Tower.
Penguin Random House initially worked from SoHo. That was after its formation in 2013. In 2016, they extended the Random House Tower contract until 2033. They also moved to the tower of its subsidiary. Penguin Random House occupies 603650 square feet and employs 2400 people here.
Critics have noted that the Random House Tower’s three main towers give the impression of three books. The architects referred to them as “three sliding crystals”.
So, the next time you pass the Random House Tower, remember it is more than just a building. It’s a place where stories are made and where people live high above the city.