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The Quilted Giraffe

1975 establishments in New York (state)1993 disestablishments in New York (state)Defunct restaurants in ManhattanMadison AvenueMidtown Manhattan
Restaurants disestablished in 1993Restaurants established in 1975

The Quilted Giraffe was a nouvelle cuisine fine dining establishment in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The restaurant, founded by Barry Wine and his now ex-wife Susan, was first opened in New Paltz, New York, in 1975 and moved to 50th Street in Manhattan, New York City, in 1979. The Quilted Giraffe reopened in 550 Madison Avenue (then the AT&T Building) at 55th Street and Madison Avenue in 1987. The restaurant closed at the end of 1992 when Sony purchased the building and bought out the Wines' lease. The restaurant was designed by Woodson Rainey, AIA, of McDonough Rainey Architects. Regulars at the establishment included Warren Beatty, Woody Allen, Adnan Khashoggi, Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, and John DeLorean and Cristina Ferrare.The restaurant was awarded four stars by New York Times food critic Marion Burros in 1984 and two additional times by New York Times food critic Bryan Miller.Among the chefs who worked under Wine at the restaurant and then went on to notable careers are Jan Birnbaum, Carmen González, David Kinch and Tom Colicchio.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article The Quilted Giraffe (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

The Quilted Giraffe
Madison Avenue, New York Manhattan

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N 40.76125 ° E -73.973472222222 °
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550 Madison Avenue (Sony Tower;Sony Building;SonyPlaza;AT&T Building)

Madison Avenue 550
10037 New York, Manhattan
New York, United States
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550 Madison Avenue
550 Madison Avenue

550 Madison Avenue (formerly known as the Sony Tower, Sony Plaza, and AT&T Building) is a postmodern skyscraper at Madison Avenue between 55th and 56th Streets in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee with associate architect Simmons Architects, the building was completed in 1984 as the headquarters of AT&T and later became the American headquarters of Sony. The building consists of a 647-foot-tall (197-meter), 37-story office tower with a facade made of pink granite. It originally had a four-story granite annex to the west, which was demolished and replaced with a shorter annex in 2020. At the base of the building is a large entrance arch facing east toward Madison Avenue, flanked by arcades with smaller flat arches. A pedestrian atrium, connecting 55th and 56th Streets midblock, was also included in the design, which enabled the building to rise higher without the use of setbacks. The ground-level lobby is surrounded by retail shops, which were originally an open arcade. The office stories are accessed from a sky lobby above the base. Atop the building is a broken pediment with a circular opening. The building has received much attention ever since its design was first announced in March 1978. The AT&T Building at 550 Madison Avenue was intended to replace 195 Broadway, the company's previous headquarters in Lower Manhattan. Following the breakup of the Bell System in 1982, near the building's completion, AT&T spun off its subsidiary companies. As a result, AT&T never occupied the entire building as it had originally intended. Sony leased the building in 1991, substantially renovated the base and interior, and acquired the structure from AT&T in 2002. Sony sold the building to the Chetrit Group in 2013 and leased back its offices there for three years. In 2016, the Olayan Group and Chelsfield purchased 550 Madison Avenue with plans to renovate it. 550 Madison Avenue was designated a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2018.

Le Pavillon (Henri Soulé restaurant)

Le Pavillon was a New York City restaurant that defined French food in the United States from 1941 to 1966. The restaurant started as the Le Restaurant du Pavillon de France at the 1939 New York World's Fair run by Henri Soulé (1904–1966). When World War II began, Soulé and the Pavillon chef Pierre Franey stayed in the United States as war refugees. The restaurant formally opened on October 15, 1941, at 5 East 55th Street on Fifth Avenue, across the street from the St. Regis New York. In 1957, Le Pavillon moved to the Ritz Tower on Park Avenue and 57th Street. Soulé died in 1966, and Le Pavillon closed in 1971.In his autobiography, Jacques Pépin describes how he was first employed at Le Pavilion after emigrating to the US in 1959. He found that Franey and the rest of the staff were underpaid and treated poorly by Soulé, who insisted that he was barely making ends meet, even though he would offer complimentary meals and wine to a large number of celebrity guests. When Pépin and others organized a protest, he found himself physically threatened by organized-crime goons. However, there was soon an exodus of the staff (Franey and Pépin moved to Howard Johnson's) and the restaurant never recovered. Soulé's other faux pas was allowing paparazzi to disturb the Kennedy family (who were regular customers) and their staffers during John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign: when the Kennedy team, which was dining at the restaurant, asked the paparazzi to leave, Soulé insisted that only he had the right, as owner, to determine who entered and left the restaurant, and stated that, even before the election, "the Kennedys already think they are running the country." (Pépin was offered the job of White House chef after the election, but declined.) Daniel Boulud opened a restaurant with the same name in 2021, in homage to Soulé's restaurant.

19 East 54th Street
19 East 54th Street

19 East 54th Street, originally the Minnie E. Young House, is a commercial building in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is along 54th Street's northern sidewalk between Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue. The building was designed by Philip Hiss and H. Hobart Weekes of the firm Hiss and Weekes. It was constructed between 1899 and 1900 as a private residence for Minnie Edith Arents Young. The house was designed as a palazzo in the Italian Renaissance Revival style. The 54th Street facade was designed as a four-story structure with a rusticated first story and decorated windows on the upper stories. Because 19 East 54th Street was wider than other houses in the area, the architectural details were designed to be more imposing. The penthouse at the fifth and sixth stories is recessed from the street. The interior was ornately outfitted with a coffered ceiling, a stained-glass conservatory, and staircases with oak paneling. Young commissioned the house after her uncle Lewis Ginter, the founder of the American Tobacco Company, died in 1897 and left her a large bequest. Young leased the home to "Lucille" Lady Duff Gordon in 1920. The house was subsequently occupied by antiques trader Arthur S. Vernay from 1925 to 1943, then by the English-Speaking Union until 1956. Hairdresser Mr. Kenneth operated a salon in the building from 1963 until 1990, when the house's interior was severely damaged by fire. The building was then renovated and has served as Bank Audi's U.S. headquarters since 1993. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated 19 East 54th Street as an official landmark in 2016.