CBS' Black Rock Standing Tall After 50 Years
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The CBS building known as "Black Rock" is aging gracefully and keeping up with the times.
With its austere black facade, the city landmark designed by architect Eero Saarinen has been familiar to passersby and architecture lovers and critics for 50 years now.
The corporate headquarters on the corner of West 52nd Street and Sixth Avenue embodies the vision of CBS founder William S. Paley, who hired Saarinen.
CBS' Black Rock Stands Tall After 50 Years
Nicknamed "Black Rock" for its skin and shallow plaza of black Canadian limestone, its facade is composed of triangular vertical columns with lines of windows between them.
"And these triangles run without interruption from the plaza almost 500 feet to the roof," said Matt Postal, historian at the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. "It's very minimal. It's entirely black, and the glass is sort of a dark gray."
And amid the shiny aluminium buildings that line Sixth Avenue, Black Rock, which opened March 24, 1965, resembles nothing but itself.
One recent innovation can't be seen from street level.
The building has the city's largest, tallest green roof -- 8,000 square feet and 38 stories up -- where low-lying, drought-resistant, water-saving plants are growing.
It was installed five years ago when a new roof was needed. It absorbs stormwater runoff, keeps pollution from getting into the watershed and helps warm the building in winter and cool it in summer.
"It's important to save energy," Senior Vice President Tom Cruthers says in a corporate video. "It's important to save our natural resources, and also important to save money."
