1552 Broadway

1552 Broadway, also known as the I. Miller Building, is a commercial structure on Times Square in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. Located at the northeast corner of Broadway and 46th Street, the building was designed by Louis H. Friedland, with sculptures by Alexander Stirling Calder. The current building, designed for shoe retailer I. Miller, dates to 1926 and was combined from two 19th-century brownstone residences on the site. It contains decorative elements from several styles.

The building was designed with four stories, though the top story has been removed internally. The facade was designed in a different manner on Broadway and 46th Street. The Broadway elevation is designed with a storefront at the first two stories and billboards on the top two stories. The 46th Street elevation is divided into five vertical bays, with limestone on the two lowest stories and stucco above. Between the third-story windows on 46th Street are niches with statues of actresses Ethel Barrymore, Marilyn Miller, Mary Pickford, and Rosa Ponselle. There are billboards above the roof. Inside, the storefronts were subdivided into space for I. Miller and a retail tenant, while the upper stories contained I. Miller's offices.

Shoe designer Israel Miller had leased space at the previous brownstone at 1554 Broadway in the 1910s. He signed a long-term lease on the buildings in 1920 and, upon taking possession of the lease, remodeled the brownstones in 1926 with new facades by Louis H. Friedland. Miller also commissioned the actresses' sculptures from Calder, which were installed in 1929 shortly after Miller's death. The building remained an I. Miller store until the 1970s, after which the building was sold to investors. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated 1552 Broadway as a city landmark in 1999, and a TGI Fridays restaurant operated at 1552 Broadway in the early 21st century. The building was sold to SL Green and Wharton Acquisitions in 2011, and the new owners made extensive renovations from 2012 to 2014, converting the building to part of an Express, Inc. store and removing the fourth floor.

The I. Miller Building is at 1552 Broadway, at the northeast corner with 46th Street, along Times Square in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, U.S. While the building carries a Broadway address, it is actually on the east side of Seventh Avenue, as the adjoining section of Broadway was converted into a permanent pedestrian plaza in the 2010s. The rectangular land lot covers 3,234 square feet (300.4 m²), with a frontage of 40 feet (12 m) on Times Square and 80 feet (24 m) along 46th Street. 1552 Broadway faces Duffy Square directly to the west.

The current building was adapted from a pair of four-story brownstone tenements at 1552 and 1554 Broadway. The surrounding area is part of Manhattan's Theater District and contains many Broadway theatres. The building is surrounded to the north and east by the Actors Equity Building at 1560 Broadway. Immediately to the north are TSX Broadway at 1568 Broadway, containing the Palace Theatre, as well as the Embassy Theatre within 1560 Broadway. Other nearby buildings include the Church of St. Mary the Virgin to the east; 1540 Broadway and the Lyceum Theatre to the south; the New York Marriott Marquis to the southwest; the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre and Hotel Edison to the west; and the Morgan Stanley Building to the northwest.

The I. Miller Building at 1552 Broadway was designed by Louis H. Friedland as a shoe store for Israel Miller. It was adapted in 1926 from the two existing brownstone residences on the site. The building contains four statues sculpted by Alexander Stirling Calder. The facade consists of a base with two stories and an upper section that was originally two stories. Both the western elevation on Times Square and the southern elevation on 46th Street are designed with modern classical features. Friedland designed the two elevations in different styles, since they would be seen from different viewpoints. The modern building has three stories inside and is connected internally to 1560 Broadway.

The Broadway elevation was designed with a storefront containing curved corners at the first two stories. There were originally two storefronts; the southern storefront was taken by the I. Miller store, while the northern storefront was rented out. At the time, it was becoming common practice in New York City to build arcaded storefronts, with the store entrances recessed behind display windows. By the late 1990s, the northern storefront's arcaded entrance remained, but the southern storefront had been modified with orange marble. The second story had been covered with a curved sign that wrapped around to 46th Street. The original storefront was restored in a 2014 renovation.

Initially, the Broadway elevation contained a group of signs totaling 3,500 square feet (330 m²). A slightly angled sign, which was in place by the 1920s, covered what was originally the top two stories. The original brownstone on 1552 Broadway was refaced in granite, but 1554 Broadway's brownstone facade was not modified. Friedland had originally planned for the top floors to be clad in stucco, with rectangular window openings on the third story. The fourth-floor windows would have been blocked up so an oval sign with I. Miller's name would be placed there. This did not happen because there was a billboard on the existing third and fourth stories, and Miller either could not or would not break the billboard's lease. As of 2014^[update], the top stories contain 8,500 square feet (790 m²) of electronic signs, including a 150-foot-tall (46 m) LED sign on the store's roof.