People may still call it the “Sony building,” but the distinctive headquarters on Madison Ave in NYC doesn’t belong to the media and electronics company anymore. It just closed the $1.1B deal struck in January to sell the skyscraper to a consortium led by The Chetrit Group. Sony says that after repaying building-related debt and transaction costs, it will receive net cash proceeds of $770M for a gain on the sale of $685M, which it will record as operating income for the last quarter of the fiscal year that ends March 31. A leaseback agreement will enable Sony execs and businesses including Sony Music Entertainment, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, and Sony Pictures Entertainment to stay where they are for up to three years. Architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee designed the building, finished in 1984, to serve as AT&T’s headquarters. The ornamental top was said to resemble a Chippendale bookcase. Sony began to lease space there in the early 1990s and bought the building for $236M in 2002.


It was the AT&T Building, then the Sony Building. We’ll get used to whatever its new name is. Permanence in building names has become fleeting. Even Chrysler doesn’t own the Chrysler Building anymore.
The open ended three quarter circle at the top of the original AT&T building was specifically designed for the company to symbolize archetypically an original telephone “rotary dial” (remember those) and – as with most distinguishable tops of tall building in NY – help pedestrians orient themselves from near and far in the jungle of towering edifices. Apparently AT&T never dreamed they’d sell it.
Saw ZDT in the screening room in December-a really beautiful space.