The building has 36 floors.Built in 1929–1930, it was headquarters for the New York Daily News newspaper until 1995. It was also the headquarters of United Press International until the news service moved to Washington, DC in 1982. Its design by architects Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells, in the Art Deco style, has been called "one of the city's major Art Deco presences" by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, as well as "the first fully modernistic free-standing skyscraper of architect Raymond Hood." It was among the first skyscrapers to be built without an ornamental crown, and can be seen as a precursor to Hood's design of Rockefeller Center. A 1957–60 addition to the building which expanded the lobby on the southwest corner of Second Avenue was designed by Harrison & Abramovitz, echoing the vertical stripes of the original design, except with a wider stripe. The building, including the newspaper's new printing presses, cost $10,700,000 - about $135 million in 2010 dollars.
