science

1221 Avenue of the Americas

1221 Avenue of the Americas is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand 1221 Avenue of the Americas rather than just read about it. In short: 1221 Avenue of the Americas (formerly also known as the McGraw-Hill Building) is an international-style skyscraper at 1221 Sixth Avenue (also known as the Avenue of the Americas) in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The 51-floor structure has a seven-story base and a simple, cuboid massing.

Key takeaways

1221 Avenue of the Americas belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect 1221 Avenue of the Americas to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of 1221 Avenue of the Americas from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

1221 Avenue of the Americas (formerly also known as the McGraw-Hill Building) is an international-style skyscraper at 1221 Sixth Avenue (also known as the Avenue of the Americas) in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The 51-floor structure has a seven-story base and a simple, cuboid massing. The facade has no decoration and consists of red granite piers alternating with glass stripes to underline the tower's verticality. It served as the headquarters of McGraw Hill Financial from 1972 to 2015. The building is set back 115 feet (35 m) from Sixth Avenue. Its sunken courtyard formerly contained Sun Triangle, a 49-foot (15 m) abstract steel sculpture by Athelstan Spilhaus. The tower's lobby is clad in dark red terrazzo and red marble, with aphorisms by Plato and John F. Kennedy.

Background

The building was part of the later Rockefeller Center expansion (1960s–1970s) dubbed the "XYZ Buildings". Their plans were first drawn in 1963 by the Rockefeller family's architect, Wallace Harrison, of the architectural firm Harrison & Abramovitz. Their letters correspond to their height. 1251 Avenue of the Americas is the "X" Building as it is the tallest at 750 ft (229 m) and 54 stories, and was the first completed, in 1971. The "Y" is 1221 Avenue of the Americas, which was the second tower completed (1973) and is the second in height (674 ft and 51 stories). The "Z" Building, the shortest and the youngest, is 1211 Avenue of the Americas with 45 stories (592 ft). The building houses the New York practice of professional services and accountancy firm Deloitte and was previously the headquarters of McGraw-Hill Financial. Other tenants include Sirius XM Satellite Radio, whose headquarters and broadcast facility are in the building, and the law firms Mayer Brown and White & Case. In December 2016, CPPIB sold a 45% stake in the building to CIC for $1 billion, which valued it at $2.3 billion. In 2009, the structure earned a LEED green-building certification. A renovation of the plaza and retail space was announced in 2017, and the $50 million project was underway by 2022. The sunken courtyard formerly contained a 49-foot-tall (15 m) metal triangle designed by Athelstan Spilhaus and fabricated by Tyler Elevator Products, arranged so the Sun aligns with its sides at solstices and equinoxes. 1221 Avenue of the Americas' entrance plaza, on Sixth Avenue, was renovated in 2023 at a cost of $50 million.

1999 elevator incident After entering an express elevator serving floors 39–50 at approximately 11:00 p.m. (EDT) Friday on October 15, 1999, Nicholas White, a Business Week employee whose office was in the building, became trapped in an elevator after a brief power dip caused it to stop between the 13th and 14th floors. White was not rescued until approximately 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 17, nearly 41 hours later, after security guards spotted him in the elevator surveillance cameras. In 2008, The New Yorker uploaded a video, originally called "Trapped in an Elevator for 41 Hours", which contained surveillance-camera footage of White being trapped in the elevator. White filed a lawsuit against the building's management and elevator maintenance company for negligence as he remained unnoticed for a majority of the time despite attempting to use the intercom and maintenance being performed on other elevators that weekend; he settled 4 years later for an undisclosed sum, hinting "hardly six figures".

In popular culture The buildings are featured in the title sequence of Saturday Night Live, seen from below looking up in the street from a car. It was used for the exteriors and lobby of Elias-Clarke's headquarters in the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada. The building appeared as interior shots for the television show Suits. It is also the headquarters of Sirius XM Radio, and many radio shows broadcast from the building including The Howard Stern Show. The plaza and sculpture are also featured as part of the New York City Level of the video game Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. The Devil Wears Prada 2 again filmed in NYC at 1221 Avenue of the Americas for the fictional "Runway Magazine" offices, drawing fans and paparazzi to the streets in July 2025 to watch the actors exit the building lobby and wave from the windows of Quorum by Convene, a real-life meeting and event space managed by corporate event producers, Convene, and available for private events when not used as a conference space for White & Case. The Devil Wears Prada 2 , released in 2026, showed a brief scene with Anne Hathaway's character Andy taking notes in front of the 270-degree screen inside the Quorum by Convene Grand Hall and transformed the venue's "huge light-filled" Grand Gallery into a cafeteria with cash registers and grab-and-go snacks, where Stanley Tucci's character Nigel teases Andy for still liking the soup.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with 1221 Avenue of the Americas

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what 1221 Avenue of the Americas claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to 1221 Avenue of the Americas before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about 1221 Avenue of the Americas ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of 1221 Avenue of the Americas

In research: 1221 Avenue of the Americas appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses 1221 Avenue of the Americas in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: 1221 Avenue of the Americas is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1960s architecture in the United States, 1969 establishments in New York City, Mass media company headquarters in the United States, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for 1221 Avenue of the Americas outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study 1221 Avenue of the Americas in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what 1221 Avenue of the Americas means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain 1221 Avenue of the Americas out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is 1221 Avenue of the Americas in simple terms?

Why does 1221 Avenue of the Americas matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study 1221 Avenue of the Americas?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on 1221 Avenue of the Americas.