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95-516: The Film Center Building , also known as 630 Ninth Avenue , is a 13-story office building on the east side of Ninth Avenue between 44th and 45th Streets in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City . Built in 1928–1929, the structure has historically catered to businesses involved in film, theater, television and music and audio production. The building was designed in

190-424: A cutaway view parts of the exterior are omitted to show the interior, or details of internal construction. Although common in technical illustration, including many building products and systems, the cutaway is in fact little-used in architectural drawing. Architectural drawings are produced for a specific purpose, and can be classified accordingly. Several elements are often included on the same sheet, for example

285-400: A stencil , or a combination of the two. Ink lines were drawn with a ruling pen , a relatively sophisticated device similar to a dip-in pen, but with adjustable line width, capable of producing a very fine controlled line width. Ink pens had to be dipped into ink frequently. Draftsmen worked standing up, keeping the ink on a separate table to avoid spilling ink on the drawing. Developments in

380-458: A synonym for façade, so the "north elevation" is the north-facing wall of the building. A cross section , also simply called a section, represents a vertical plane cut through the object, in the same way as a floor plan is a horizontal section viewed from the top. In the section view, everything cut by the section plane is shown as a bold line, often with a solid fill to show objects that are cut through, and anything seen beyond generally shown in

475-473: A view camera or a perspective control lens is used to eliminate the third vanishing point, so that all the verticals are vertical on the photograph, as with the perspective convention. This can also be done by digital manipulation of a photograph taken with a standard lens. Aerial perspective is a technique in painting, for indicating distance by approximating the effect of the atmosphere on distant objects. In daylight, as an ordinary object gets further from

570-564: A basis for their working drawings, to establish exact dimensions for the construction work. Surveys are usually measured and drawn up by specialist land surveyors . Historically, architects have made record drawings in order to understand and emulate the great architecture known to them. In the Renaissance, architects from all over Europe studied and recorded the remains of the Roman and Greek civilizations, and used these influences to develop

665-423: A building construction project: these will include not only architect's drawings, but structural and other engineering drawings as well. Working drawings logically subdivide into location, assembly and component drawings. Formerly, working drawings would typically combine plans, sections, elevations and some details to provide a complete explanation of a building on one sheet. That was possible because little detail

760-403: A building or group of buildings. A site plan shows property boundaries and means of access to the site, and nearby structures if they are relevant to the design. For a development on an urban site, the site plan may need to show adjoining streets to demonstrate how the design fits into the urban fabric. Within the site boundary, the site plan gives an overview of the entire scope of work. It shows

855-416: A building proposal prior to detailed design: drawing up a site plan is a tool for deciding both the site layout and the size and orientation of proposed new buildings. A site plan is used to verify that a proposal complies with local development codes, including restrictions on historical sites. In this context the site plan forms part of a legal agreement, and there may be a requirement for it to be drawn up by

950-414: A building. For example, the construction of a sash window would be left to the carpenter, who would fully understand what was required, but unique decorative details of the façade would be drawn up in detail. In contrast, modern buildings need to be fully detailed because of the proliferation of different products, methods and possible solutions. Perspective in drawing is an approximate representation on

1045-468: A convenient diagram but as a formal presentation technique, adopted in particular by the Modern Movement . Axonometric drawings feature prominently in the influential 1970's drawings of Michael Graves , James Stirling and others, using not only straightforward views but worms-eye view, unusually and exaggerated rotations of the plan, and exploded elements. Detail drawings show a small part of

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1140-410: A different scale is required for different axes , and again this can be calculated but in practice was often simply estimated by eye. Traditional drafting techniques used 30–60 and 45 degree set squares , and that determined the angles used in these views. Once the adjustable square became common those limitations were lifted. The axonometric gained in popularity in the twentieth century, not just as

1235-574: A film in New York had to come to this building." A syndicate of investors from Detroit, represented by Benjamin Fenton, bought the building in December 1950 for $ 3 million (equivalent to $ 37,992,000 in 2023). The Film Center Building Corporation leased the building back for 14 years. Around the same time, the building began receiving alternating current power from Consolidated Edison ; previously,

1330-583: A fire. The building had 2 in-thick (5.1 cm) steel doors, which acted as fire curtains and would drop down if a fire was detected. Each vault contained 12 fire sprinklers; by the 2010s, modern fire standards only necessitated one sprinkler in each vault. Over the years, some of the vaults have been converted to office space. Some of the chimneys have been sealed up after the corresponding vaults were demolished. The building also contained other facilities for film tenants, such as sound and processing laboratories; graphic art studios; and projection rooms. In

1425-445: A flat surface of an image as it is perceived by the eye. The key concepts here are: The basic categorization of artificial perspective is by the number of vanishing points: The normal convention in architectural perspective is to use two-point perspective, with all the verticals drawn as verticals on the page. Three-point perspective gives a casual, photographic snapshot effect. In professional architectural photography , conversely,

1520-417: A licensed professional: architect, engineer, landscape architect or land surveyor. An elevation is a view of a building seen from one side, a flat representation of one façade . This is the most common view used to describe the external appearance of a building. Each elevation is labelled in relation to the compass direction it faces, e.g. looking toward the north you would be seeing the southern elevation of

1615-477: A napkin. Initial thoughts are important, even if they have to be discarded along the way, because they provide the central idea around which the design can develop. Although a sketch is inaccurate, it is disposable and allows for freedom of thought, for trying different ideas quickly. Choice becomes sharply reduced once the design is committed to a scale drawing, and the sketch stage is almost always essential. Diagrams are mainly used to resolve practical matters. In

1710-474: A record of the design and planned development, or to make a record of a building that already exists. Architectural drawings are made according to a set of conventions , which include particular views ( floor plan , section etc.), sheet sizes, units of measurement and scales, annotation and cross referencing. Historically, drawings were made in ink on paper or similar material, and any copies required had to be laboriously made by hand. The twentieth century saw

1805-537: A rectangular vestibule, which in turn leads to the main lobby, an elevator lobby, and a passageway leading to a secondary entrances. The lobby's walls and ceilings resemble tapestries, while details such as stair risers, ventilation grilles, directory signs, and elevator doors were designed in a multicolored scheme. The upper stories contain offices, which were initially used largely by major film companies such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . There were also nearly 100 film vaults, some of which have been converted to office space over

1900-458: A rough design that provides an adequate response to the particular design problems. There are two basic elements to a building design, the aesthetic and the practical. The aesthetic element includes the layout and visual appearance, the anticipated feel of the materials, and cultural references that will influence the way people perceive the building. Practical concerns include space allocated for different activities, how people enter and move around

1995-447: A sheet showing a plan together with the principal façade. Drawings intended to explain a scheme and to promote its merits. Working drawings may include tones or hatches to emphasize different materials, but they are diagrams, not intended to appear realistic. Basic presentation drawings typically include people, vehicles and trees, taken from a library of such images, and are otherwise very similar in style to working drawings. Rendering

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2090-445: A shift to drawing on tracing paper so that mechanical copies could be run off efficiently. The development of the computer had a major impact on the methods used to design and create technical drawings, making manual drawing almost obsolete, and opening up new possibilities of form using organic shapes and complex geometry. Today the vast majority of drawings are created using CAD software. The oldest architectural elevation drawing

2185-509: A thinner line. Sections are used to describe the relationship between different levels of a building. In the Observatorium drawing illustrated here, the section shows the dome which can be seen from the outside, a second dome that can only be seen inside the building, and the way the space between the two accommodates a large astronomical telescope: relationships that would be difficult to understand from plans alone. A sectional elevation

2280-407: Is a technical drawing of a building (or building project) that falls within the definition of architecture . Architectural drawings are used by architects and others for a number of purposes: to develop a design idea into a coherent proposal, to communicate ideas and concepts, to convince clients of the merits of a design, to assist a building contractor to construct it based on design intent, as

2375-614: Is a New York City designated landmark. According to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission , the decorative scheme of the lobby is "one of Kahn's most striking interior designs". Just inside the Ninth Avenue entrance is a rectangular vestibule with a white ceiling. A plaster band, which consists of inverted stepped triangles, wraps across the ceiling and down both of the side walls. There are cast-metal ventilation grilles near

2470-422: Is a combination of a cross section, with elevations of other parts of the building seen beyond the section plane. Geometrically, a cross section is a horizontal orthographic projection of a building on to a vertical plane, with the vertical plane cutting through the building. Isometric and axonometric projections are a simple way of representing a three dimensional object, keeping the elements to scale and showing

2565-462: Is also signed as "Oreo Way". The first Oreo cookies were manufactured in 1912 at the former Nabisco headquarters on that block. The portion of the avenue between 14th and 31st Streets was remodeled in 2008 with a bicycle lane between the eastern curb and the parking lane, followed by another portion between 77th and 96th Streets in 2011. Above the Lincoln Square neighborhood—where

2660-400: Is chosen both to ensure the whole building will fit on the chosen sheet size and to show the required amount of detail. On the scale of one-eighth of an inch to one foot (1:96) or the metric equivalent of 1 to 100, walls are typically shown as simple outlines corresponding to the overall thickness. At a larger scale, half an inch to one foot (1:24) or the nearest common metric equivalent 1 to 20,

2755-609: Is designed in a similar manner to that on Ninth Avenue, with a similar plaster band, but is smaller than the Ninth Avenue vestibule. In addition to housing film distribution companies, the building provided storage space for films, particularly nitrate film . As such, film vaults were provided on each of the upper stories, and one full floor was provided for film storage. There were originally 96 vaults, each measuring 6 by 15 ft (1.8 by 4.6 m); each storage vault had 8 in-thick (20 cm) brick walls. The vaults on each floor had separate chimneys, reducing smoke damage in case of

2850-466: Is mounted above the entrance. On each story of all three elevations, there is a pair of sash windows in the outer bays and groups of four sash windows in each of the inner bays. The windows on each story are separated by grooved spandrel panels. In addition, a belt course runs horizontally across the facade above the 10th and 12th floors; the belt courses were an example of the simple geometric designs that Kahn used in his designs. The building's lobby

2945-594: Is realistically workable. Sizes are determined by a consistent paper size system, according to local usage. Normally the largest paper size used in modern architectural practice is ISO A0 (841 mm × 1,189 mm or 33.1 in × 46.8 in) or in the USA Arch E (762 mm × 1,067 mm or 30 in × 42 in) or Large E size (915 mm × 1,220 mm or 36 in × 48 in). Architectural drawings are drawn to scale so that relative sizes are correctly represented. The scale

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3040-426: Is the art of adding surface textures and shadows to show the visual qualities of a building more realistically. An architectural illustrator or graphic designer may be employed to prepare specialist presentation images, usually perspectives or highly finished site plans, floor plans and elevations etc. Measured drawings of existing land, structures and buildings. Architects need an accurate set of survey drawings as

3135-498: Is the most fundamental architectural diagram , a view from above showing the arrangement of spaces in a building in the same way as a map , but showing the arrangement at a particular level of a building. Technically it is a horizontal section cut through a building (conventionally at four feet / one metre and twenty centimetres above floor level), showing walls, windows and door openings, and other features at that level. The plan view includes anything that could be seen below that level:

3230-701: The ABC television network houses its corporate headquarters in a group of rehabilitated and modern buildings—Columbus Avenue passes through the Central Park West Historic District , stretching from 67th/68th Streets to 89th Street. There, the avenue presents a unified streetscape of 5- to 7-story tenement buildings of brick and brownstone with discreet Romanesque and Italianate details, employing cast terracotta details and panels and courses of angle-laid brickwork. Many ornate tin cornices remain. The buildings are separated in mid-block by

3325-658: The Al Hirschfeld Theatre , a Broadway theater, and the Davenport Theatre , an Off-Broadway theater, to the east. The site had historically been part of John Leake Norton 's estate, which was split into multiple plots in 1825. John F. Betz of Philadelphia, whose family owned the John F. Betz & Sons Brewery , acquired part of Norton's estate in 1862, on the eastern side of Ninth Avenue from 44th to 45th Street. Five-story tenements were developed along

3420-692: The American Museum of Natural History and Theodore Roosevelt Park. Ninth Avenue reappears in the Inwood neighborhood as a short two-way street in two segments interrupted by the New York City Subway 's 207th Street Yard . It runs from West 201st Street to West 208th Street, dead-ending at Inwood North Cove Park at the Harlem River , then picks up again at West 215th Street, and terminates at Broadway between West 220th Street and

3515-578: The Art Deco style, with Ely Jacques Kahn as the architect of record . The lobby's interior is a New York City landmark , and the building is on the National Register of Historic Places . The Film Center Building occupies a rectangular site. Its facade is largely made of brown brick, with windows on all sides, although the ground story has a marble facade and the second story has a white-stone facade. The main entrance on Ninth Avenue leads to

3610-604: The Broadway Bridge , at the location where West 221st Street would normally be. The addresses along this upper stretch from 201st Street to Broadway are continuous with the lower portion of Ninth Avenue. The Ninth Avenue Elevated was a passenger train that ran above Ninth Avenue, beginning in the nineteenth century. The lease for the line was assumed by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) on April 1, 1903. The line ran until it

3705-615: The McGraw-Hill Building . Among the Film Center's tenants during the 1990s was the offices of off-Broadway theater Playwrights Horizons , as well as recording studios such as Adrian Carr Music, Mirror Image, and Reel Tyme. By the 21st century, the building's tenants included Big League Productions, as well as the Ambassador Theatre Group and 451 Media Group . In 2017, Newmark Holdings refinanced

3800-409: The acronym CAD) is the use of computer software to create drawings. Today the vast majority of technical drawings of all kinds are made using CAD. Instead of drawing lines on paper, the computer records equivalent information electronically. There are many advantages to this system: repetition is reduced because complex elements can be copied, duplicated and stored for re-use. Errors can be deleted, and

3895-474: The 1910s and 1920s, New York City's film industry was centered around Times Square , and major companies such as Loews Cineplex Entertainment and Paramount Pictures had their offices there. Many businesses related to the film industry occupied space in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, west of Times Square, where rents were generally cheaper. The film industry of New York City had largely migrated to Hollywood by

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3990-504: The 1920s, Charles M. Steele negotiated with various film distributors to develop a headquarters away from the Theater District of Manhattan. In March 1928, Abe N. Adelson , developer of the 2 Park Avenue office building (also designed by Ely Jacques Kahn), acquired a site on the eastern side of Ninth Avenue extending from 44th to 45th Street. The site, valued at $ 700,000 (equivalent to $ 12,421,000 in 2023), had been owned by

4085-431: The 1920s. Nonetheless, many of New York City's film exchanges occupied crowded offices at that time; according to The New York Times , this "created a situation that was causing concern to those responsible for the protection of the city from fire". The Film Center Building was developed on a city block that also housed the distribution offices of 20th Century Fox Animation , Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros. During

4180-431: The 1950s. This prompted leasing agent Newmark & Company , to begin leasing space to television producers, as they required much of the same equipment that film producers did. To attract tenants, Newmark sent promotional brochures to all of the known television and independent film producers at the time. The Film Center Building was again fully occupied by 1961. The New York City Department of Welfare leased space in

4275-412: The 20th century included the parallel motion drawing board, as well as more complex improvements on the basic T-square. The development of reliable technical drawing pens allowed for faster drafting and stenciled lettering. Letraset dry transfer lettering and half-tone sheets were popular from the 1970s until computers made those processes obsolete. Computer-aided design (generally referred to by

4370-594: The Betz family for over fifty years. At the time, one floor had already been leased to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer corporation. S. W. Strauss financed the building's development by issuing $ 1.9 million in bonds, equivalent to $ 33,714,000 in 2023. Demolition of existing buildings began on April 11, 1928, and the R. H. Howes Construction Company began erecting the building on April 21. Half of the building's office space had been leased by December 1928, when space in

4465-507: The Film Center Building had used direct current power from its own generators. The building had completely switched to AC power by February 1951. During the 1960s, the Film Center Building's owners upgraded the elevators and renovated all of the office space, and they operated a 24/7 film-shipping facility for tenants. The building's vacancy rate increased after numerous large film studios scaled back their operations during

4560-640: The New York City government by 1935. The Film Center Building's owners proposed reorganizing the building in early 1936, at which point it was 85 percent occupied. As part of the reorganization plan, half of the building's net income would be allocated to paying off the mortgage, while the other half would be used for paying down debts. The Central Hanover Bank & Trust foreclosed on the Film Center Building and acquired it at auction in July 1936, paying just under $ 2 million. Walter Reade Enterprises acquired

4655-417: The architecture of the period. Records are made both individually, for local purposes, and on a large scale for publication. Historic surveys worth referring to include: Record drawings are also used in construction projects, where "as-built" conditions of the completed building are documented to take account of all the variations made during the course of construction. A comprehensive set of drawings used in

4750-404: The bottom of both walls, with horizontal and vertical geometric motifs. The vestibule's decorations were intended to resemble a tapestry . Additional doors from the vestibule lead to the lobby, which has a gray wall and a multicolored floor with gray, ochre, and pink. A plaster band wraps around the ceiling and side walls of the lobby, similarly to in the entrance vestibule, and the decorations of

4845-587: The building had been leased to eight film exchanges. The building was completed in January 1929, when MGM moved into the structure. The Film Center Building's completion coincided with the construction of other film-exchange buildings in the immediate vicinity of Ninth Avenue and 44th Street. Almost all of the office space, vaults, laboratories, and other rooms were occupied by large film companies. Thirteen firms took space in April 1929; by that June, about 70 percent of

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4940-524: The building to the First Republic Bank for $ 4 million; as part of the sale, First Republic assumed the building's $ 1.54 million mortgage. Newmark acquired the building outright in 1971. By the mid-1970s, New York City's film industry had become decentralized, and the surrounding neighborhood had begun to decline. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Film Center Building's lobby as an interior landmark in 1982, and

5035-471: The building until the mid-1960s. The building's tenants during that decade also included Columbia Pictures , Universal Pictures, and Seven Arts Productions . By the late 1960s, these tenants began using cellulose acetate film , which was much less flammable than older types of film. As a result, the fireproof vaults became redundant, and Newmark began removing some of the vaults to create additional office space. In October 1968, Video Film Center Associates sold

5130-461: The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Jeffrey Gural of Newmark Realty said in the early 1990s that the Film Center Building was more than 90 percent rented. With the revival of the area around Times Square in the 1990s, smaller companies began relocating to buildings on the outskirts of the Times Square neighborhood, including the Film Center Building and

5225-419: The building with a $ 75 million loan. GFP, which had split from Newmark, began renovating the building, including converting 25,000 sq ft (2,300 m) of film vaults to office space, as well as refurbishing the windows and bathrooms. The renovation included adding 220 windows, installing turnstiles in the lobby, and installing film-themed signs on each floor. Bricks from the old vaults were reused within

5320-554: The building's office space had been leased. The building's early tenants included First Division Pictures Inc., Educational Pictures , FBO Pictures , Hollywood Pictures , the Pathé Exchange , United Artists , and the Vitaphone Corporation of America. In addition, the ground story contained a Prudential Bank branch. The building was nearly fully occupied by 1930, when Meyer-Reiger Laboratories leased space on

5415-404: The building, daylight and artificial lighting, acoustics, traffic noise, legal matters and building codes, and many other issues. While both aspects are partly a matter of customary practice, every site is different. Many architects actively seek innovation, thereby increasing the number of problems to be resolved. Architectural legend often refers to designs made on the back of an envelope or on

5510-399: The building. Buildings are rarely a simple rectangular shape in plan, so a typical elevation may show all the parts of the building that are seen from a particular direction. Geometrically, an elevation is a horizontal orthographic projection of a building onto a vertical plane, the vertical plane normally being parallel to one side of the building. Architects also use the word elevation as

5605-412: The buildings (if any) already existing and those that are proposed, usually as a building footprint; roads, parking lots, footpaths, hard landscaping , trees, and planting. For a construction project, the site plan also needs to show all the services connections: drainage and sewer lines, water supply, electrical and communications cables, exterior lighting, etc. Site plans are commonly used to represent

5700-420: The construction at a larger scale, to show how the component parts fit together. They are also used to show small surface details, for example decorative elements. Section drawings at large scale are a standard way of showing building construction details, typically showing complex junctions (such as floor to wall junction, window openings, eaves and roof apex) that cannot be clearly shown on a drawing that includes

5795-405: The corners of the walls between the elevator lobby and main lobby. In addition, the lobby contains orange, yellow, and blue mosaics. The elevator lobby contains light and dark horizontal stone bands on its walls. The elevator doors, mailbox, and tenant directory are designed in a modern style, with a multicolored scheme, although some of the elevator doors have been repainted. On the eastern wall of

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5890-669: The early phases of the design architects use diagrams to develop, explore, and communicate ideas and solutions. They are essential tools for thinking, problem solving, and communication in the design disciplines. Diagrams can be used to resolve spatial relationships, but they can also represent forces and flows, e.g. the forces of sun and wind, or the flows of people and materials through a building. An exploded view diagram shows component parts dis-assembled in some way, so that each can be seen on its own. These views are common in technical manuals, but are also used in architecture, either in conceptual diagrams or to illustrate technical details. In

5985-405: The eastern side of Ninth Avenue between 44th and 45th Streets, in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Midtown Manhattan in New York City . The land lot is rectangular and covers about 18,000 sq ft (1,700 m). The site occupies 200 ft (61 m) along Ninth Avenue and 90 ft (27 m) along both 44th and 45th Streets. The Film Center Building shares the city block with

6080-479: The elevator lobby is a multicolored mosaic. This mosaic, perpendicular to the elevator doors, has red, orange, yellow, and blue geometric motifs, oriented both horizontally and vertically. The ceiling of the elevator lobby contains a triangular decoration that blocks part of the mosaic, although it is unknown whether Kahn had intended for this to happen. The elevator lobby was built with four elevators. Floor plans indicate that three freight elevators were installed behind

6175-466: The eye, its contrast with the background is reduced, its color saturation is reduced, and its color becomes more blue. Not to be confused with aerial view or bird's eye view, which is the view as seen (or imagined) from a high vantage point. In J M Gandy's perspective of the Bank of England (see illustration at the beginning of this article), Gandy portrayed the building as a picturesque ruin in order to show

6270-428: The final image is intended to be almost indistinguishable from a photograph. A sketch is a rapidly executed freehand drawing, a quick way to record and develop an idea, not intended as a finished work. A diagram could also be drawn freehand but deals with symbols, to develop the logic of a design. Both can be worked up into a more presentable form and used to communicate the principles of a design. In architecture,

6365-449: The finished work is expensive and time consuming, so it is important to resolve the design as fully as possible before construction work begins. Complex modern buildings involve a large team of different specialist disciplines, and communication at the early design stages is essential to keep the design moving towards a coordinated outcome. Architects (and other designers) start investigating a new design with sketches and diagrams, to develop

6460-549: The firm Buchman & Kahn was the architect of record . Edward Raymond McMahon of Buchman & Kahn was largely responsible for the overall design, though little is known about him. The Film Center's first-floor interior, highlighted by Kahn's "highly individualistic version of the Art Deco style", includes pre-Columbian influences. The building contains 280,000 sq ft (26,000 m) of rentable space. with 18,000 sq ft (1,700 m) on each story. The structure

6555-487: The first major north-south avenue in Manhattan with a protected bike lane. The bike lane initially extended only from 23rd to 16th Street. A protected bike lane on Columbus Avenue was built between 96th and 77th Street in 2010–2011; the bike lane led to increases in vehicular speeds, since drivers were no longer stuck behind bicyclists. After a $ 231 million project that replaced some of the water pipes under Ninth Avenue,

6650-417: The floor, stairs (but only up to the plan level), fittings, and sometimes furniture. Objects above the plan level (e.g. beams overhead) can be indicated as dashed lines. Geometrically, plan view is defined as a vertical orthographic projection of an object onto a horizontal plane, with the horizontal plane cutting through the building. A site plan is a specific type of plan, showing the whole context of

6745-527: The floors direct visitors to the elevators. The lobby may have been designed by Engelbartus van der Woord, who worked for Kahn's firm. The lobby contains various three-dimensional decorations related to theater, such as camera motifs and triangular projections. Where the main lobby intersects with a smaller elevator lobby, the wall has reliefs that resemble movie cameras, which reference the edifice's original purpose as an ancillary building for Times Square's film industry. There are several projecting red cylinders on

6840-453: The full height of the building. A full set of construction details needs to show plan details as well as vertical section details. One detail is seldom produced in isolation: a set of details shows the information needed to understand the construction in three dimensions. Typical scales for details are 1/10, 1/5 and full size. In traditional construction, many details were so fully standardized, that few detail drawings were required to construct

6935-427: The ground story, white stone on the second story, and brown brick on the other stories. The main entrance is on Ninth Avenue, although there are additional entrances on the side streets, On Ninth Avenue is a stepped frame with geometric designs and bands, which flanks the first-story entryway and second-story windows. On the first story of the entryway are three doors; a sign with the words "Film Center" in capital letters

7030-427: The internal plan arrangement, a precursor of the cutaway view. A montage image is produced by superimposing a perspective image of a building on to a photographic background. Care is needed to record the position from which the photograph was taken, and to generate the perspective using the same viewpoint. This technique is popular in computer visualization, where the building can be photorealistically rendered, and

7125-434: The latter part of the 20th century, all architectural drawings were manually produced, if not by the architects, then by trained (but less skilled) draftsmen (or drafters ), who did not generate the design, but did make many of the less important decisions. This system has continued with CAD drafting: many design architects have little or no knowledge of CAD software programmes, relying upon others to take their designs beyond

7220-416: The layers of different materials that make up the wall construction are shown. Construction details are drawn to a larger scale, in some cases full size (1 to 1 scale). Scale drawings enable dimensions to be "read" off the drawing, i.e. measured directly. Imperial scales (feet and inches) are equally readable using an ordinary ruler. On a one-eighth inch to one-foot scale drawing, the one-eighth divisions on

7315-439: The main elevator lobby. A wide hallway extends to the south of the main lobby. There is a smaller hall on the eastern side of this hallway, just south of the lobby. Next to this hall is a staircase with a green wall and red cylinders, similar to those in the main lobby; the design of the red cylinders resembles a tapestry. The hallway shifts southeast and then south, connecting to a secondary vestibule on 44th Street. This vestibule

7410-509: The narrowest of access alleys, giving glimpses of Ailanthus foliage in the side-street yards. The repeated designs of three or four commercial speculative builders, using the same features and detailing, add to the avenue's architectural unity. There are several generously scaled pre- World War I apartment buildings and the former Endicott Hotel , as well as a small commercial block from the office of McKim, Mead, and White at 72nd Street . Between 77th and 81st Streets, Columbus Avenue borders

7505-464: The neighboring section of Ninth Avenue during the late 19th century. During the early 20th century, the area evolved into a hub for New York City's film industry. At the time of the Film Center Building's construction, it faced the Ninth Avenue elevated line of the New York City Subway . The Film Center Building was built in 1928–29 and was designed in the Art Deco style. Ely Jacques Kahn of

7600-728: The new office space. Ninth Avenue (Manhattan) Ninth Avenue originates just south of West 14th Street at Gansevoort Street in the West Village , and extends uptown for 48 blocks until its intersection with West 59th Street , where it becomes Columbus Avenue  – named after Christopher Columbus . It continues without interruption through the Upper West Side to West 110th Street , where its name changes again, to Morningside Drive , and runs north through Morningside Heights to West 122nd Street . A one-block stretch of Ninth Avenue between 15th and 16th Streets

7695-474: The property in early 1948, purchasing a majority of the stock in Film Center Inc. The building was refinanced in 1949 with a $ 1.5 million loan from Prudential Insurance (equivalent to $ 19,022,000 in 2023). By the early 1950s, the tenants included RKO, Loew's, United Artists, Universal Pictures , Republic Pictures , and Monogram Pictures . One film producer said: "Sooner or later, anyone shooting

7790-421: The relationship between several sides of the same object, so that the complexities of a shape can be clearly understood. There is some confusion over the distinction between the terms isometric and axonometric. "Axonometric is a word that has been used by architects for hundreds of years. Engineers use the word axonometric as a generic term to include isometric, diametric and trimetric drawings." This article uses

7885-430: The ruler can be read off as feet. Architects normally use a scale ruler with different scales marked on each edge. A third method, used by builders in estimating, is to measure directly off the drawing and multiply by the scale factor. Dimensions can be measured off drawings made on a stable medium such as vellum. All processes of reproduction introduce small errors, especially now that different copying methods mean that

7980-563: The same drawing may be re-copied, or copies made in several different ways. Consequently, dimensions need to be written ("figured") on the drawing. The disclaimer "Do not scale off dimensions" is commonly inscribed on architects' drawings, to guard against errors arising in the copying process. This section deals with the conventional views used to represent a building or structure. See the Types of architectural drawing section below for drawings classified according to their purpose. A floor plan

8075-575: The second floor. Other space was leased to the National Screen Service , which occupied three stories, and to the Film Service Laboratories Inc. Within ten years of the Film Center Building's opening, it housed 70 distribution companies. Some time after the Film Center Building opened, its owners obtained a second mortgage of $ 300,000 (equivalent to $ 5,472,000 in 2023). The building's owners owed taxes to

8170-657: The segment between 59th and 50th Street was narrowed to three travel lanes in March 2023, and a painted sidewalk and protected bike lane were added. The Ninth Avenue International Food Festival street fair is held every year in May. Uptown buses use 10th Avenue unless specified below: The New York City Subway 's IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line ( 1 train) has a station on Columbus Avenue at 66th Street and Broadway ). Notes Elevation (architecture) An architectural drawing or architect's drawing

8265-512: The sketch stage. Draftsmen often specialize in a type of structure, such as residential or commercial, or in a type of construction: timber frame, reinforced concrete, prefabrication, etc. The traditional tools of the architect were the drawing board or drafting table, T-square and set squares , protractor , compasses , pencil , and drawing pens of different types. Drawings were made on vellum , coated linen , and tracing paper . Lettering would either be done by hand, mechanically using

8360-494: The speed of drafting allows many permutations to be tried before the design is finalized. On the other hand, CAD drawing encourages a proliferation of detail and increased expectations of accuracy, aspects which reduce the efficiency originally expected from the move to computerization. Professional CAD software such as AutoCAD is complex and requires both training and experience before the operator becomes fully productive. Consequently, skilled CAD operators are often divorced from

8455-423: The terms in the architecture-specific sense. Despite fairly complex geometrical explanations, for the purposes of practical drafting the difference between isometric and axonometric is simple (see diagram above). In both, the plan is drawn on a skewed or rotated grid, and the verticals are projected vertically on the page. All lines are drawn to scale so that relationships between elements are accurate. In many cases

8550-421: The years. In the 1910s and 1920s, New York City's film industry was centered around Times Square , prompting developer Abe N. Adelson to acquire a site for a film-distribution building in April 1928. Tenants began moving to the building in January 1929, coinciding with the construction of other film-exchange buildings in the immediate vicinity. The Film Center Building was sold at a foreclosure auction in 1936 and

8645-560: Was closed and dismantled in 1940, following the purchase of the IRT by the City of New York , as it was made redundant by the city's Eighth Avenue subway line . Ninth Avenue and Columbus Avenue were converted to carry one-way traffic southbound in two stages. South of its intersection with Broadway, the avenue was converted on November 6, 1948. The remaining stretch, to 110th Street, was converted on December 6, 1951. In 2007, Ninth Avenue became

8740-438: Was designed as a rectangular mass with minimal ornamentation. What sparse decoration the building had was concentrated on the lowest two stories. The north, west, and south elevations of the facade respectively face 45th Street, Ninth Avenue, and 44th Street. The Film Center Building's facade is divided vertically into eleven bays on Ninth Avenue and five bays each on 44th and 45th Streets. The facade includes marble piers on

8835-460: Was found in a piece of white terracotta crucibles unearthed in China, dated 7400 years ago. It shows 2 stilted watch towers (or light houses) with spiral staircase above water. The size of drawings reflects the materials available and the size that is convenient to transport – rolled up or folded, laid out on a table, or pinned up on a wall. The drafting process may impose limitations on the size that

8930-483: Was included, the building techniques involved being common knowledge amongst building professionals. Modern working drawings are much more detailed and it is standard practice to isolate select areas of the project on separate sheets. Notes included on drawings are brief, referring to standardized specification documents for more information. Understanding the layout and construction of a modern building involves studying an often-sizeable set of drawings and documents. Until

9025-415: Was subsequently sold again in 1950. By the mid-20th century, television and independent film producers began taking space there. The First Republic Bank bought the Film Center Building in 1968, and Newmark & Company acquired it in 1971. GFP Real Estate, which split from Newmark & Company, further renovated the Film Center Building in the 2010s. The Film Center Building is on 630 Ninth Avenue, on

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