SPEAKER_04 0:15

Welcome to the Pan Am Podcast, brought to you by the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York. This podcast and our museum are dedicated to celebrating the legacy of the world's most iconic airline, Pan American World Airways. My name is Tom Betty and I'm the host of this program. Thank you for joining us. The Pan Am Museum Foundation is a nonprofit organization. Our mission statement is to educate, celebrate, and inspire present and future generations by preserving historical and diverse personal stories of Pan American World Airways. Please visit our website for more information at the Pan Ammuseum.org. Again, our website is the Panamuseum.org. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you are using Apple Podcasts, please consider leaving a review. It will help others discover this program. If you're not familiar with Pan Am, welcome. We are honored to have you here and for you to learn about what we're all about. If you already know of Pan Am, worked for, or flown on the airline, or just love our history, it's good to be with you again. So with that, let's get this episode in the air, so to speak. Welcome aboard your Pan American jet clipper. This 59-story skyscraper is located at 200 Park Avenue and shares a lot with the Beaux Arts Icon and National Landmark, New York's Grand Central Terminal. Later in the program, we will be joined by Richard Roth Jr., the grandson of Emory Roth, a prolific New York City architect who designed many notable buildings in the 1920s and 1930s. Richard will provide a firsthand account on the design and construction process of the Pan Am building as he had a front-row seat. After graduating college, the young architect joined the family firm and worked closely alongside the building's famous architects and project developer. But first, let's explore the architecture and design of the Pan Am building. This building has been the topic of much debate amongst architects, architectural historians, preservationists, and planners alike since the 1950s. Although initially criticized for its location, placement, and for its alleged disregard of its surrounding urban environment, the building was infamously called one of the most hated buildings in New York City. However, the Pan Am Building's architectural design is gaining popularity and respect with time, and today is considered to be one of the city's many landmark buildings, instantly recognized in movies, TV shows, books, tourism advertisements, postcards, and more. The building's brutalist international-inspired octagonal-shaped tower rises 808 feet above Grand Central Terminal, bisecting the view down Park Avenue, creating the most infamous vista in the city's history. However, despite its criticism, the Pan Am Building is underrated for its engineering and technological accomplishments. A new generation of architects and historic preservationists are giving the building a much needed contemporary look, especially with the recent growing popularity of mid-century modern designs. The building has become an important landmark and an important part of the fabric of the New York City skyline, just as much as more famous structures like the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings. Additionally, in the light of present-day construction in Midtown Manhattan, with much taller buildings that tower over the Pan Am building, such as one Vanderbilt, much of the earlier criticism is out of date, and it is time to give the Pan Am building a second more objective appraisal. Let's explore the history of the building. First and foremost, when the Pan Am Building opened in 1963, it represented the passing of the proverbial torch and of technological progress. When the building was completed, it was the new headquarters for Pan American World Airways and became another symbol of the new jet age as it was built next to and towered over a historic train station that represented the past. The unique parcel of land where the Pan Am Building and the Grand Central Terminal sit today on Park Avenue traces its roots all the way back to 1871 and the first steam railroads of the 19th century, which were connected to Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt's New York Central Railroad. With train tracks stretching from New York City to Buffalo, it was the second largest railroad in the country. Completed in 1913 in the Beaux Arts style, Grand Central Terminal, also known as Grand Central Station, would immediately be regarded as a monument to the power of raw capitalism. Grand Central quickly became one of New York's most recognizable landmarks, serving as a testament to the power and strength of the railroad industry in the United States. However, by the 1950s, the railroad companies were not in the best financial shape. Profits had been suffering ever since the advent of the interstate highway system, and even more so with the rapid growth of commercial aviation, along with the introduction of the jet age. Desperate for revenue, the railroads were looking at the land which it owned and operated under. In June of 1954, the new chairman of the New York Central Railroad, Robert Young, talked of plans to redevelop the Grand Central lot and replace the old terminal with a new, more profitable high-rise structure. Young began taking proposals from architects about a new skyscraper complex, and most of the plans called for the demolition of the old terminal. Developer Erwin Wolfson was selected for the new project called Grand Central City and would be referred to as Project X. Upon hearing the news that the old terminal could face demolition, angry cries from the public began to take notice, and the earlier controversial plans that called for the demolition of Grand Central Terminal were rejected. The old terminal, with its historic interior concourse, was regarded as a historically significant public utility and priceless public art, even though it was privately owned on private property. At this point in time, New York City's Planning Commission had no jurisdiction over preservation of architecture, nor could it determine whether a company had a right to demolish or not. Prior to World War II, Park Avenue was lined with beautiful masonry hotels and residences. This had made Park Avenue one of the premier living quarters of Manhattan, with Grand Central at the center of it all. The construction boom that occurred in the post-war era introduced a new wave of glass curtain walled construction, replacing a number of the old Park Avenue Masonry buildings. A large majority of these new buildings were built by a prominent New York architecture firm called Emory Roth Sons. Emory Roth was an Australian-Hungarian immigrant whose firm was responsible for a number of buildings constructed in Manhattan since the turn of the century. By 1955, the late Mr. Roth Sons, Richard Sr. and Julian, had taken over the firm and were responsible for the construction of numerous post-war buildings along Park Avenue, including the Pan Am Building, then known as Project X. Richard would focus on the architectural design of projects, and Julian would focus on the construction. The Roth firm proposed a plan for a new skyscraper set to be placed next to Grand Central. Despite the numerous proposals from other firms, and some criticism associated with the Roth plan, Emory Roth and Sons would ultimately be commissioned for the project. Developer Erwin Wolfson and Richard Roth Sr. asked a recent college graduate, Richard Son Richard Jr., to come up with a list of prominent architects that they should consider hiring for Project X. In May of 1958, Walter Gropius, the former chair of Harvard's architecture department and founder of the Bauhaus, and Pietro Beluski, Dean of Architecture and Urban Planning at MIT, were chosen from the list. Wolfson and Roth Sr. hoped that by bringing in two eminent architects, they would be able to attract more distinguished tenants and originally planned for them to simply lend their names to the project and then disappear back into the world of academia. As much as Wolfson wanted Gropius and Beluski to just lend their names as figureheads of the project, Gropius had other ideas. He took a very personal role in redesigning the building in his image. In the 1920s, Gropius had once before tried to have one of his skyscrapers built, but this project never came to fruition. Beluski withdrew his focus elsewhere and let Gropius realize his dream. The new design would have a larger capacity than any commercial office building in existence, with a floor area of over three million square feet. Structurally, the Pan Am building was to be an engineering challenge situated on multiple levels of underground train tracks. According to a 1961 article by the New York Times on the construction of the Pan Am Building, quote, the builders are combining the use of some 200 existing steel columns that supported the old six-story terminal office building now demolished, with 99 new columns being set into bedrock 55 feet below the surface of the street. During construction, Wolfson was searching for prospective tenants. By chance, Pan American World Airways happened to be looking for an office building to be the new headquarters of the ever-expanding airline. Pan Am's 30-year lease with the Chrysler Building was up for renewal, and the legendary founder, chairman, and CEO Juan Tripp knew his company needed more space and ruled out renewing. He noticed the construction over by Grand Central and became interested in potentially leasing floor space in the new building. Wolfson met with Tripp in July 1960, with Tripp insisting on absolute secrecy in their negotiations. Wolfson knew that if he could secure Pan American as the principal tenant, the project would instantly be a financial success and tenants would flock to the building. And because of this, Tripp had the upper hand in the negotiations, as he knew Wolfson needed Pan Am more than Pan Am needed his building. Tripp liked the idea that the building was brand new and could be built to his specifications, would break records, and most importantly, internationally financed, which is a natural fit for his international airline. A deal was reached and Pan Am leased fifteen floors of the new building, or six hundred and thirteen thousand square feet, the largest of any one single tenant. Since Tripp had leased so much floor space, and since it was customary to name the building after the largest tenant, Tripp requested thirty-foot-tall signs at the top bearing the name of his company on all eight sides of the building, which by this time the building was seen as certain to become a major landmark in the city. Gropius did not like this idea and said it would appear overdone and the dignity of the building would suffer. Gropius countered with 15-foot signage instead of thirty. He was convinced that thirty feet letters would destroy the appearance of the building. In addition, he suggested four sides instead of six. Tripp agreed, and the estimated monetary value of the advertisements up top this midtown skyscraper would be worth approximately one million dollars alone. Most importantly, and most controversially, Juan Tripp had made one other request, and this was that the roof of the building be converted into a helipad. Tripp's vision was that passengers could walk into the lobby of the Pan Am Building, purchase their tickets at the airline's ticket office, get on an elevator to the roof, and fly on a helicopter from Midtown Manhattan to the departing gates at Idlewell International Airport, later to be renamed JFK, after the slain president. This idea of a heliport was met with extreme pushback, not only from the public, but from Gropius, who now had to go back and structurally redesign the building to handle the weight of a heliport on the roof, all while retaining his original design. Tripp insisted, thinking that the heliport could be a profitable enterprise, and more importantly, make it convenient, prestigious, and novel for his passengers to get to and from the airport. Let's take a listen to a 1962 promotional film about New York Airways helicopter service. New York Airways would later fly the helicopters to and from the Pan Am building.

SPEAKER_10 14:11

New York Airways Flight 404, departing New York Airport, is about to take off. A distance of 35 miles. On the ground, 35 of the most congested commercial travel miles in the world. But by helicopter, along the skyline route, an unforgettable experience. Can this really be a helicopter? With a stewardess aboard? In the Boeing Virtual 107, New York Airways introduces a new dimension of passenger comfort and convenience in helicopter travel with overhead rack and additional hand luggage space under the seats. With individual air vents and reading lights. These attractive appointments were created by the same designer who produced the magnificent Boeing 707 jet interiors, offering comfortable theater-type seats and panoramic windows for viewing or picture taking. Voices need never be raised above normal conversational levels. Except for vertical takeoff and landing, you can hardly feel the difference between a flight in the 107 and one aboard a fixed-wing airplane. In fact, as George Fox of Charleston is now learning, New York Airways is essentially no different from other scheduled airlines. Less than 20 minutes ago, George Fox was in a bad jam. Arriving at New York Airport on a delayed flight from Charleston, he knew his overseas flight to London was scheduled out of Idlewild in less than an hour. 35 miles away. Late afternoon, meaning heavy traffic into and out of Manhattan. Bumper to bumper in the city. Impossible. Two hours at least. But someone had told him about the helicopter service to Idlewild. And there it was. A flight leaving in just 10 minutes. One of dozens of scheduled departures, leaving every 30 minutes, day and night, for terminal points in the metropolitan area.

SPEAKER_04 17:10

Here's another clip. This one is from British Pathay News, reporting on the 1960s Manhattan building boom while the Panium building was being completed.

SPEAKER_07 17:22

New York skyline is undergoing change. New buildings rising on the Tide Island to the tune of something like two and a half billion dollars for construction costs alone since World War II. Manhattan's emergence as the front office of the nation brings new working space for 575,000 office workers, a white-collar city rising to replace outloaded structures. An expert calls it the most prolonged and voluminous outpouring of new commercial structures in all history. Manhattan's building boom is reflected in other constructions. And here it's the world's largest commercial office building, rising just behind Grand Central Terminal. The $100 million Pan Am building boasts Anglo-American sponsorship. So the American and British flags are raised on steel girders to be set into position on the topmost tier of the 59-story structure.

SPEAKER_04 18:16

Besides Pan American, when the building opened, other tenants included Westinghouse Electric, Hammer Mill Paper Company, Kodak, and Chrysler. The retail shops at the ground floors of the Pan Am Building were opened in August 1963. The tenant selection process was rigorous and selective. The management company assessed all goods and services sold by potential tenants for quality. Only the best were allowed to have shops in the Pan Am building. For example, the firm's vice president got haircuts from each of the six applicants for the lobby barber shop. Furthermore, average rents in the Pan Am building were about $6.75 per square foot, slightly higher than the average of $5.25 to $6 per square foot in other midtown Manhattan buildings. Nevertheless, by the first anniversary of its opening, the Pan Am building was 97% leased with 241 tenants. The Pan Am Building was the largest commercial office space in the world by square footage. When the building opened on March 7, 1963, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller was quoted saying that the building rose over the city as a symbol of the genius and creativity of the free enterprise system. The Pan Am Building was an engineering marvel for its time, constructed atop multiple underground levels of active railroad and dubbed the most complicated building ever built. The Pan Am Building had three restaurants and a large parking garage. To move the building's population of 25,000 occupants, there would be a total of 69 elevators, four car lifts, and 21 escalators. More than 80 miles of cable was used in the elevator complex, which was the largest single internal transportation system ever installed in a building at that time. Because of its sheer size, the building required state-of-the-art mechanical systems for heating and air conditioning, and an all-new custom-designed telephone switchboard rated to handle some 20,000 phone lines. Juan Tripp's expectation that the new building attract attention and set records was certainly realized as the Pan Am Building would hold on to the title of the world's largest office building for a decade until the opening of the World Trade Center in 1973. In 1964, Pan Am and New York Airways were still testing the viability of the helicopter service from the top of the building. There was still much concern about safety from city officials, nearby building owners, and the general public at large. Let's take a listen to another news clip from British Patha.

SPEAKER_07 21:09

A Manhattan Midtown skyscraper roof becomes a heliport in the air. After a four-minute leap from the foot of Wall Street, a helicopter comes in for a landing to the amazement of Blumsday, New Yorkers. This is a tremendous performanceable regular copter service from the Grand Central Area to the New York World's Claire and as well listed the major airports that serve the metropolitan area. Officials disembarked after their trip from Denham Tennis. There is still some discussion of the advisability of the heliport in the center of this densely populated island with its dozens of skyscrapers. But to demonstrate the safety of the operation, backers of the service take members of the city's planning commission as the first passengers on the trial run to the fairground. The take-up and flight were perfect. Even so, it would still be several months before the public can whirling bird to the bigger and back in ten minutes.

SPEAKER_04 22:11

When helicopter service finally began in 1965, the Pan Am Heliport was immediately met with complaints from the residents who lived in Midtown Manhattan. These individuals complained about the noise from the constant takeoffs between the hours of 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. Here's another clip from British Pathway about the helicopter service beginning.

SPEAKER_09 22:41

You're seeing it from a helicopter that recently discovered the temple service from the top of the Manhattan skyscraper to Canada. It takes seven minutes from the momentum nearport to the city centre under the twin genoctor. Forty minutes from the club. Common rocket penalty and menu was to him common speed when the commandable board is the 25 feet aircraft. A service like this to London Airport is long overdue.

SPEAKER_04 23:34

Even though Pan Am agreed to modify the hours of helicopter operation, complaints still flew in. Eventually, in 1968, only three years after the service began, the airline decided to suspend the helicopter service from the top of the Pan Am building for no reason other than poor use. It was not as popular as Tripp hoped it would be. The helipad remained abandoned until New York Airways reintroduced helicopter service in early 1977, among much local debate, protest, and safety concerns. A few months later, those safety concerns became a reality on May 16, 1977, when a twin-engine Sikorsky helicopter experienced a mechanical failure. The landing gear of this helicopter, which had been idling and waiting to receive passengers for takeoff, collapsed, tilting the helicopter on its side. The blades, still turning, broke off and immediately killed four people on the rooftop who were waiting to board. The blade then flew off the roof, only to boomerang back around to hit the building, injuring a man in his office before falling to the street and killing a 29-year-old woman. Here's a news clip from WXIX on May 18, 1977, about the aftermath of the accident.

SPEAKER_11 24:57

Monday's helicopter crash at the Pan Am Heliport has revived a long-standing community protest against Midtown helicopter service. Last January, Eastside residents and workers tried to keep New York Airways from reopening the airport shuttle service. And today they were back in force in the first demonstration since five people died in a freak accident just two days ago. Christy Whitker reports.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

One of the organizers of that demonstration and today is Vincent Albano, chairman of the New York Republican County Committee whose constituents live in this area.

SPEAKER_05 25:42

This is the most congested area in the world. Especially at the time that the helicopters are serviced in the morning when the people of Common America come into the Glenn Central, come to these office buildings, lay down home in the evening.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

I think that uh the world's a very tragic accident, and I think that uh aerosopy as much like an uh the helicopter service can be brought up back in a very safe manner, both for the passengers and for the people of Manhattan.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

To destroy the quality of life in all the central part of Manhattan to serve so very few people.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

Well, again, it was a tragedy. As everybody says, it's an unfortunate thing, but there are planes landing and taking off every minute a kennedy apple. Whenever a plane crashed to 200 to 300 people get killed, they don't go to a little person gets hit by a kid that don't have a little kid.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Ten years ago, in this famous demonstration such as this helped muster public support against the heliport, it subsequently closed, probably because it wasn't making money, but also because city officials got worried about the public safety when helicopters were landing and flying over so many millions of people every day. This time the group says it's going to redouble its efforts, that the demonstrations will continue if they want the band to become permanent, and they say they'll take their fight to the courts if necessary. Misty Whitker, Channel 11, Action News at the Pan Am Building in New York.

SPEAKER_04 27:04

After this fatal accident, helicopter service from atop the Pan Am building was permanently discontinued. New York Airways would cease operations entirely two years later. Five years after the building opened, Pan Am quietly bought a 45% stake in the building from the estate of Jack Cotton, one of the major investors of the project. The airline would slowly build on its share of the building until obtaining full ownership of the property as well as the underlying land. After the airline sustained large financial losses and debts during the late 1970s economic recession, as well as the need to free up capital for the acquisition of national airlines, Pan Am placed the building for sale in February 1980. About half the leases were scheduled to expire in three to four years, and many leasees were exempt from paying the building's operating cost, which made the Pan Am building only marginally profitable for the airline. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, also known as MetLife, emerged as a buyer and bought the building for $400 million in 1981. This was the largest commercial real estate sale up until that time, and part of the deal was that the new owners would keep the Pan Am name atop the building as long as the airline was its principal tenant. When Pan American World Airways went out of business on December 4, 1991, there was widespread debate on whether or not the Pan Am signage should remain. Ultimately, the decision was made in 1992 to remove the signage from the building and in its place erected MetLife, which remains today. In 2005, MetLife sold the building to real estate developer Tishman Spire for $1.25 billion. Today, even though MetLife no longer owns the property, the MetLife signage continues to remain. The building has made its way into countless films such as Catch Me If You Can, Godzilla, Armageddon, and even video games such as Grand Theft Auto. To this day, most New Yorkers and cabbies still refer to the building as the Pan Am Building, and it has earned its place within the urban fabric of Manhattan. Now, on to our interview with Richard Roth Jr., who will provide a firsthand account of the design and construction process of the Pan Am Building. Richard Roth Jr. practiced architecture from the late 1950s through the 1990s as part of the third generation of the family firm Emory Rothan Sons. Rising to chief architect, Richard led the designs for many major high rises in the booming post-war development of Manhattan, including 55 Water Street, the Palace Hotel, the World Trade Center, and the Pan Am Building. He lives in Hollywood, Florida, where he is enjoying retirement and spending time with family and friends. Welcome to the Pan Am Podcast, Richard. Well, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. So this podcast is about the history of Pan Am and the people of Pan Am. And you are certainly one of the people that we wanted to share your story because your story is very important to Pan Am history. How about if we start with your background? Tell us a little bit about your childhood and your family.

SPEAKER_06 30:50

My family, the lost side of my family, started with my grandfather, who at the age of 13 in 1884 made his way all by himself from a town which is now in Slovakia, but was then part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. And he made his way all the way from this town called now Sekovic to the New World. He took himself, he was supposed to meet a man whose name was KISS, which is a very Hungarian name like Jones. And Kiss had seven dollars, which was all the money that Emory had. And he met Kiss and Kiss gave him the seven dollars. Emory took off for the Midwest. He first went to Kansas City, uh where he worked as a to do cleaning, uh, but he loved to draw. He would uh draw all the time and he would sell his drawings. So he made some money uh selling drawings and then he made his way to Bloomington, Illinois, where he worked for an architect as an apprentice. And there was where he got his love for the romantic side of architecture, meaning the Art Nouveau uh secessionist, DNA secessionist movement, which had pretty much taken over architecture at the end of the 1800s. He apprenticed there, and then he found that there was a big exhibition, 1893 exhibition in Chicago called the Columbian Exposition, which was the largest world's fair at the time, and maybe the largest of all time, and he got a job working for the architects of the fair, which was a joint venture of a firm called Burnham and Root and uh the Hunt firm, uh Richard Hunt, and Richard Hunt's father. And he worked there as a draftsman and was actually given a project to design, which had to be done in a hurry, for a candy fac a candy company. And the library, which he talks about in his autobiography, was huge at the fair. And he went to the library and he found a building in Rome that he liked very much, and he adapted this building uh to the World Fair, and it actually was built. After the fair was over, Richard Hunt had opened up an office in New York and uh had told Emory that if he did decide to come to New York, Hunt would offer him a job. Now, Richard Hunt is famous because he was the founder of the American Institute of Architects. Hunt didn't have a job for him, and he went to work for an architect whose name was Codman. Now, Codman was very famous for doing uh the houses in Rhode Island uh in uh Newport, Rhode Island. And uh Emory worked on a number of the houses, and when that ended, uh Emory returned to New York and he got some work from the Hungarians who had uh ventured like he did from the old world to the new world. He did a number of restaurants and a number of uh small buildings. He then bought into a firm called Stein Cone, and after three years in 1903, he bought Stein and Cone out and formed the firm Emory Roth. At that point, Emory had developed some new clients who were into the new building type, which was the apartment house, as the wealthy found that trying to maintain these huge mansions uh on the avenues in New York was a little bit too much, they were moving into mansions in the clouds, and Emory designed, was asked to design a number of mansions in the clouds. And the first was a building called the Saxony on the west side on Broadway in 1902, and then from there on the buildings got bigger, his clients got bigger, and by the time the teens rolled around, Emory Roth was one of the busiest architects in New York.

SPEAKER_04 36:35

I'd like to go back to the 1893 Roles Fair in Chicago. And for our listeners, uh, Richard is talking about his grandfather, Emory Roth, who was a famous architect and built various hotels and apartment buildings and office buildings in New York City, especially in the 1920s and 30s. But he also mentioned that his grandfather worked with Daniel Burnham and Richard Morris Hunt, two very important architects. Daniel Burnham designed the famous Flatiron Building in New York City and also Union Station in Washington, DC. And Richard Morris Hunt is known for the Biltmore estate, the Marble House, and the New York Tribune Building. Uh Richard, can you tell us? Did your grandfather ever talk about Richard Morris Hunt or Daniel Burnham? Not to me.

SPEAKER_06 37:31

Uh one of the things I regret most of all was because I was 15 when my grandfather died. So uh and I knew him, I knew him, and I spent time with him. Uh, he never really talked about architecture um to me. Now I spent time in the office uh as a child because I loved to draw. And I spent time at a drafting board generally on a Saturday, because in those days you worked Saturdays, and I would be put at a drafting board, and I would have all the paper and pencils and colored pencils that I could ever want, and I would draw, and Emory would come out and look at my drawings and say nice and then disappear. So he never ever taught me anything about architecture. Um and uh it's something that I regret that we we we never did have a conversation about his approach to architecture and how he without an education became one of the great architects of New York City. So it's something that I regret and um it's something that uh I will just appreciate uh like most people do by looking at the buildings and looking at the drawings. But he did have an influence on your career, correct? No, he had no influence on my career. The person that had an influence on my career was my mother. Now my mother's family started to come over from Germany in the mid-1800s, and uh they were musicians for the most part. My mother's mother, my grandmother, was the first woman ever to hold a scholarship in music at the Graduate School of Music at Yale University. Uh, she was a fine pianist. My mother was a fine pianist, and uh my love for music really is from their talking to me about music. I was probably talking more about music than I was architecture. And I love when my mother would play the piano, and uh there were times I was meant to sit down at a young age and listen to the Metropolitan Opera on Saturdays. In the 40s, I would rather have listened to Frank Sinatra, but I was made to listen to opera, so um my love for music preceded my love for architecture almost. Did you want to be a musician? I would have loved to have been a musician, but I hated to practice. My both my grandmother and my mother made a feeble attempt to teach me piano, but my son got the piano gene and was a fine pianist and almost could play almost any instrument. He he was really a very good musician. He also didn't like to practice, but we made him practice.

SPEAKER_04 41:09

Tell us about where you decided to go to school.

SPEAKER_06 41:13

That's very interesting. Uh, I was not a great student. Uh I suffered from dyslexia, which is uh the more I know about it, the more people I know who have uh suffered from it. And uh it took me a number of years before my school found out I really couldn't read, and I went to a very good private school. I loved to draw though, and I became an art major in high school. Uh I was an athlete and I loved to draw. And uh when it came to English, the head of the English department wrote in my senior yearbook to the most original speller he had ever known. And uh loving to draw brought me into architecture when I when I realized I wasn't gonna be a musician and I loved to dance and I loved all of anything having to do with music, I enjoyed. I loved when I realized that, I realized I was pretty good at architecture, and in looking for a university to go to go to, I didn't have the grades to go to the university my father went to, which was MIT. And I applied to a number of other schools, and I was accepted at about four of them. Probably I was accepted because my name was Roth and Emory Roth and Sons was a fairly famous firm in the early 50s, late 40s. And one summer a professor from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, came into the office and was talking to my father. Now, I was not allowed to be a draftsman during the summer. My father said, if you're going to be an architect, I want you to work out in construction. Because once you design a building, you have to know how to put it together. So the first thing you should do is learn how to put it together. And for five summers, I worked out in construction and loved every moment of it. And uh it was one of the better things he did for me because it it it taught me a great deal about how two things can match. Uh well, this professor impressed my father a great deal. The professor was a Czech who had left Prague. When Hitler moved in and went to England and practiced architecture during the war, architecture and planning during the war. And then after the war, he came to the United States with his wife and he got a position as a professor at Miami, Ohio. And he impressed my father enough that my father said, why don't I apply? I guess I was one of the few people that had ever heard of Miami, Ohio. And I did apply, and they didn't accept me. They said I had to take solid geometry and uh calculus during my summer of my uh between my senior year and entering college. So I took those two courses at White Plains High, and I was accepted at Miami, and I was the best thing that ever happened to me. Uh I had never spent very much time outside of the New York area. And I was a quintessential New Yorker. I loved New York. Well, there I was in the middle of Ohio, in the middle of nowhere, in a place we used to dub Sinus Valley. And uh there were two professors there, both Europeans, one German, whose name was Rudy Frankel, and then Victor Firth, who was the one from Prague. And they gave me an education in architecture that I could not have gotten from a an American critic, teacher, professor, who had not experienced Europe, who had not experienced the architecture of the 20s and the 30s. And uh so I I was brought up basically with a with a Bauhaus theory of architecture, and uh I think it did a great deal to open my eyes to different types of buildings, and uh I spent five years there. I met my wife there on the second day of college, and we married at mid after two and a half years, and we had a child. So I graduated when I graduated university, I had a wife and a child, and uh I suppose because I was gonna be the boss's son, I had a job.

SPEAKER_04 46:58

And as someone from Ohio, the birthplace of aviation, uh, there's always an Ohio connection to everything. We're gonna take a quick break with a Pan Am commercial from 1976.

SPEAKER_05 47:26

It's only a seven forty seven way.

SPEAKER_04 47:47

All right, so you you graduated from Miami University in Ohio, and then you moved back to New York and you worked for now your father's firm. Your father and your uncle were running it, correct?

SPEAKER_06 47:58

Correct. And I was a I came in as the lowest possible rung as a draftsman. Now, since we're this is about the Pan Am Building, I was very lucky that the Pan Am Building, which at that point was called Grand Central City, was a project that a client of ours, his name was Irwin Wilson, who happened to me my godfather, had brought into the office. Grand Central City was to be the largest office building ever built. And I was what happened was the building was designed by the office in my absence. And the bankers came to Erwin Wilson and said, since this is going to be a monument to architecture and a monument to the city, we think that in order to sell the building to tents, we should have some really great name architects as part of the project. And at that point, my father called me into his office and told me the story and said, Okay, you just graduated from college, you know all the great architects out there, and why don't you go see Erwin and talk to him and come up with a list of architects? Well, I came up with the list. And uh although Gropius and Beluski, who turned out to be the associate architects, uh, were not at the top of my list, they were on my list. Mies van der O I think topped my list and went to Cabussier and then a couple of other architects, but Gropius was like third, and Beluski was like fifth. And in those days, Gropius was head of the design school, graduate school of design at Harvard, and Pietro Beluski was head of the design school at MIT. Now, when I showed the list to Irwin, Irwin really didn't know anybody. He knew Van Derow because Van Der Row was there, and he knew Bunshaft, Gordon Bunshaft, who was the chief designer for Skidmarons and Merrill, who designed the Lever Building. Uh, a building that is one of the greatest buildings ever built in New York City.

SPEAKER_04 51:11

For our listeners, Richard developed this list. And if you don't know about the history of architecture and architects, this is like the all-star list of architects.

SPEAKER_06 51:24

It was. It even included Frank Lord Wright, who was not, I was not a fan of Wright, although there were many things about his uh architecture, his design that I did like. I was not that much of a fan. And Wright immediately was thrown off the list because he was such a difficult human being. Uh, but all these architects in 1957 were alive. Irwin decided that he would go with Gropius and Beluski because they would had a equality being the deans of major schools of architect. He figured that they would spend so much time being deans of their schools that they would not have that much time to spend on the building. And Irwin always had dollar signs in the back of his mind. Little did he know. Well, now that I put the list together, my father couldn't keep me off the job. And this is a job I really wanted to do. This was an extension of my education. To be able to work with Beluski and with Gropius was a true honor. I got to know them both extremely well during the course of the job. And we later did two other buildings, three three other buildings actually, with Pietro Beluski, who was a wonderful architect and a wonderful human being. A really wonderful man. Not that Gropius wasn't. I mean, I Gropius was the god that a lot of us architects prayed to. Gropius took the project and took it up to Boston, to Cambridge, and into his office. He had an office that was called the Architect Collaborative, where he had six other partners. So he had plenty of time to study this building. He basically set the style and set the building. And Pietro Beluski basically didn't resign from the job, but didn't spend that much time on the job and said, look, this is Gropius' work, and I'm gonna let him run with it. So the building is 99% Gropius, 1% Pietra, and a little bit of us. We then took the design that came back down from Cambridge. Now, our original design was a 50-some odd story building that ran north-south. It was about the width of the Helmsley building, so it didn't overwhelm everything around it. And it was a glass building because the office at the time, I was not in the office when this was designed, felt that it was surrounded by nothing but granite buildings, and therefore, why not reflect the beauty of the granite buildings with a modern glass building? And Leverhouse had certainly set the style for the next 20 years. On the other hand, took the project and turned it. And instead of going north-south, he designed a tower that went east-west and lined up with 45th Street. The tower was a lozenger-shaped tower, as it is now, and the end that faced 45th Street was the same width as 45th Street, which looked great on drawings, but you really can't tell up when you look at the building. Instead of a glass building, of which Gropius really had never done any glass buildings, he did the building out of a new material called shock creep, which was a European design of using precast concrete in forms and then hoisted up into the building. One is glass, the other concrete. One of the tower runs north-south, the other, the tower runs east-west. We then formed a team at Emory Roth to work alongside the team that Gropius had. And Alex was the runner between their office and our office. And the leader of our team named was Herbert Rader, who then worked for Gropius in Rome. And Herb ran our team, and Syanovich ran Gropius' team, and we managed to put together a set of drawings. Now, at this particular point, Pam wasn't even a thought. Erwin Wilson took the drawings that we prepared and he took them to a lot of tenants in New York who were looking for space. Now originally he had gone to Alcoa when the building was a glass building. And Alcoa had actually signed a lease with Irwin for a fair amount of space in the building. Now we had a building that had very little aluminum on it, but it did have a tenant, but it couldn't be called Alcoa decided it couldn't be called the Alcoa building because there's no way Alcoa's name was going to be attached to the largest concrete building ever. We took it to CBS, we took it to ABC, we took it to all the major corporations in New York who were running out of space. At this point, Irwin found financing from England. Jack Cotton had built the first modern office building in London. Jack Cotton got permission from the English government to allow the importation of the dollars needed to finance the project in the United States. So it was the first UK finance project, I guess, built in the United States since the revolution. Jack Cotton somehow knew Pan Am. And through Jack Cotton, uh Pan Am came into the picture. The chairman of Pan Am loved the idea, loved the idea of having a sign at the top of this building saying Pan Am and loved the idea of having a heliport on the top of this building. It made all the sense in the world to Pan Am. They made a deal, and the building was known as the Pan Am Building. And I think to this day, if you ask any New Yorker what the name of that building is, they'll say the Pan Am Building, not the MetLife building. In fact, MetLife doesn't even own it anymore, and doesn't even occupy any space in the building anymore. All they have is their sign left on top. And there is a movement to bring back the Pan Am sign, as I think you know, Thomas.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:28

Yes, I do. And that would be fantastic if that happens. It would be great.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:35

There are there's a couple of amusing stories that uh happened during the construction of the building. Uh Gropius chose three artists to uh put artwork into the immense lobby. I mean, the lobby was huge. One of them was a Bauhaus artist named Joseph Albers. Albert designed the mural that goes over the entrance into Grand Central Terminal. And Albert designed this mural in red, black, and white, and we drove the Formica people nuts trying to pick the exact perfect red, the perfect white and the perfect black, which uh only Albert saw. I don't think anybody else saw the color the same way. One day I got a call from Joseph, and he says, Richard, may I come in and see you? I have a problem. And I said, Certainly, come on in. So he came into the office and we went into a conference room. As I didn't have an office in those days, I was still just a designer. He said to me, I have a real problem with Gropius. And I said, What's the problem? He said, Well, he said, I designed this mural for Gropius back in the Bauhaus days, and I am very worried that he is going to remember it and I'm going to get fired. Now, the mural at this point was pretty much under construction. And I looked at Albert and I said, Joseph, if Grope hasn't remembered it by this time, I don't think he's going to remember it when it goes up. And he said, Do you really think so? And I said, Yes. He said, That relieves my mind totally.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:47

Let's talk about some of the controversies with the Pan Am building. Let's first start with Grand Central. So when they were thinking about building a new office building in that location, there was considerable discussion about demolishing the historic Grand Central station. Yes. Let's talk a little bit about that. Can you give us some background?

SPEAKER_06 1:03:12

Yes, I can. When Irwin came to my father with the project, and this was in the mid-50s, my father said, as long as we don't tear down the station, we'll do it for you. And my father was a very moral person in a great many ways. And uh later on, during the pan building, Irwin came to my father with a project in Johannesburg. And my father said he won't do it because he will not work in South Africa under apartheid. So my father actually refused to have anything to do with the project if it touched Grand Central at all. They worked out with an engineer whose name was James Rutterman, a Whey and a construction crew, uh Diesel Construction, which Erwin Wilson owned, and diesel was run by an engineer whose name was Carl Moss. And they worked out that they could put columns down through the railroad to the double layer of railroad and not touch the station at all. Well, New York Central was going bankrupt and needed money, so other people got involved, and there were many designs that were proposed by a lot of famous architects for the design. And most of those designs put a building on top of Grand Central Terminal. At the same time that this was being proposed, we were destroying one of the great buildings in New York, which was the Beds of Caracalla called Penn Station. And uh there was, if you remember, uh riots and marches, and I even marched in front of Penn Station when they were tearing it down. Uh, so there was not much hope that one would tear down Grand Central Terminal, and at that particular point, the city was proposing landmarks as an uh agency which would then landmark certain buildings in New York that would be forever untouchable.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:58

Let's talk about. Um Pan Am. So Pan Am decides that this is going to be their new world headquarters for the airline. Uh one trip didn't really have any input in the design until uh towards the end when he demanded a heliport on the top of the building, correct?

SPEAKER_06 1:06:19

Yeah, I think the heliport idea was pretty much always there. You know, I was never again, I was I was just a designer in the office. Um uh my you know, luckily I was Irwin's godson, so I did get to attend certain meetings. Um, but uh there there were meetings that I did not attend, uh, that I was not invited to, where decisions that were made were made. And I remember when the heliport, because I did get involved with the design of the heliport, we were very worried, or somebody was very worried, that the wind at the 50th floor would uh be very difficult for helicopters to land in. And uh a designer was found who could design airfoils that would serve as the railing that goes around the tower so you don't fall off, and uh would take the air and do something to it that uh would not affect the helicopter itself. I was I never had the privilege of uh flying off of the top of the building, uh, although I flew the Pan Am helicopter many times on 59th Street and from the battery. But it seemed like a great idea. I mean, he he here here was the modern city from the 1930s. The drawings of the modern city always had airplanes going from top of building to top of buildings. So here we finally had a flat roof, no water tower, and was able to uh create a runway for the helicopter.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:10

Let's talk about after the building opened and the controversy over the years. It seems like there are two groups of people in New York City: one group that loves the building, and the other group that hates the building.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:25

I also had that in my office.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:28

And in more modern times, it seems like people are appreciating the building more with the re-interest in mid-century modern architecture. And, you know, my personal opinion is the Panam Building is just as much a landmark as the Chrysler Building or the Empire State Building or the former World Trade Center. Do you have any thoughts that you like to share about public's opinion changing on the Panam Building?

SPEAKER_06 1:08:57

I remember sitting with Gropius having lunch in Cambridge, and I asked Gropius the question. I said, Grope, when you designed the building and you chose the concrete for the facade, did you ever give any thought to making it a glass building? Because it's surrounded by nothing but concrete buildings, and he said no. And I said, Why? And he said, because he liked it, and there is your answer of why the building became concrete. My feelings are that I think I would have preferred the building to be a glass building. I I think a a lighter touch in the middle. Now, of course, you've got that huge building that just opened on goes from Vanderbilt to Madison that uh is quite a bit taller than Pan Am, and it is a glass building. So things do change. As far as the design is concerned, um I liked it. It it it influenced me at the time. There was one other story I should tell. Alcoa kind of went nuts when they realized they were moving into the biggest concrete building in the world. And they came to us and they said, We have an idea we'd like to propose to you and only you, as Emory Roth, not as Richard Roth Jr. And I said, What we would like to do is take the design that is concrete and make it out of aluminum, and then pop into the aluminum quartz aggregate, which is what you put into the concrete. And we think that would answer everybody's question and make alcohol very happy. Now we look kind of looked at the people from Alcoa and said we have no idea how it works, but you know, it's your money. And about a month later they came back and they said, Forget our idea. And we asked why. And they said, Because in order to pop the quartz aggregate into the aluminum, the aluminum has to be hot. And when the aluminum cooled down, it was like being on a battle front, and the quartz kept popping out at huge speeds, and we all had to duck. So their idea, you know, uh didn't work, and that was the end. But our coward did move into the building.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:08

Very ironic. Any uh last thoughts about the legacy of the Pan Am building and the legacy of your father and grandfather's firm and and your firm?

SPEAKER_06 1:12:22

Well, I think the legacy of my grandfather's firm is now out in front of everybody. There have been two broadcasts of which I put participated in, uh, celebrating his 150th birthday and acknowledging him as one of the finest architects of apartment houses and hotels in New York City and being one of the finest architects of New York City. Um far as my father's firm is concerned, I think it's acknowledged that there wasn't a better technical firm than Emory Roth and Sons. Doing the Pan Am building put us in line directly for the World Trade Center. And the World Trade Center put us directly in line for Citicorps building. So we have, although not designed those buildings, we have celebrated the fact that we have worked with some of the great architects in the world, and that the clients thought that the buildings could not be built unless Emory Ross did the drawings and put the project together. I'm very pleased that one of my father's first buildings, which is the Look Building on Madison Avenue, is now a landmarks building. And it's a building I always enjoyed. I love the curved corner. And my father, unlike my grandfather, my grandfather was a Viennese secessionist type architect. My father grew up in the Art Deco world and was an art deco architect. And I think you can see that in some of the early buildings after the war. And I was very lucky that I was allowed to design certain buildings at a young age, which I would not have been allowed if I had not been the boss's son. And uh I was allowed to design many, many buildings that I probably would not have been allowed to design at that young age. I was lucky enough to expand the firm to we had offices in Singapore, Houston, Budapest, which is another story, and London. So I saw the world through architecture.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:05

Hopefully you flew on Pan Am.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:06

I always flew Pan Am. I we we were doing a project in Lisbon for Banco Pinto and Sotomayor, and uh I would go there once a month for a period of two years, and I was always on the Pan Am flight. Once I flew TAP, and as my client said to me, whose mother owned half the airline, said, You know what TAP stands for? And I said, The airline of Portugal. He said, No, it stands for take another plane. And uh the one time I took TAP, it took a day to get to New York. Wow, wow, yes, I I flew Pan Am and Pan Am directly to Singapore through Hong Kong.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:53

Any closing thoughts on the legacy of the Pan Am building?

SPEAKER_06 1:15:57

That I was able to work on such a building at such a time is truly very lucky. And no matter what I might think would be a better design, I think it's a great building, and I think it is a monument. I I am very proud of it, although I might have changed.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:21

Fair enough. Well, thank you so much, sir, for coming on the Panam podcast, and we wish you well and and we appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:30

Well, I thank you very much. It's always a pleasure to uh be able to talk about something that I am proud of. Thanks again.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:44

Pan Am was a pioneer in air travel and still stands as one of the most iconic and innovative airlines in aviation history. That legacy lives on at the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York, where you can explore the rich history of the aircrafts and individuals at the heart of the company known as the world's most experienced airline. For more information about the Pan Am Museum, check out our website at www.thepan Amuseum.org. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. As was once a tagline in one of our commercials, we would greatly appreciate your support to help the Pan Am Museum continue making the going great. You can also support the museum by shopping on our online store for all things Pan Am accessories, apparel, jewelry, books, models, and posters. We want to hear from you. If you have a question for us or want to share your story, our email address is podcast at the Pan Ammuseum.org. We have a special thank you to Edward Condit for his donation in support of the Pan Am Podcast. And with that, we're going to close out this episode with a Pan Am song called Put a Dime in the Slot. As flight crews once said to passengers departing for their destinations around the world, thank you for flying, Pan Am.