Daily News Building
Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells’ 36-story Art Deco tower on 42nd Street houses a rotunda lobby with a slowly rotating painted globe — an image so compelling that it became the fictional home of the Daily Planet in the original Superman comics.
At a glance
The Daily News Building stands at 220 East 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, a 36-story Art Deco skyscraper completed in 1930 and designed by Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells. Originally built as the home of the New York Daily News — then the highest-circulation newspaper in the United States — the building is distinguished by its white-brick facade with vertical window bands and by its rotunda lobby containing a large rotating painted globe. It is a National Historic Landmark and a New York City designated landmark.
Key facts
- Completed: July 23, 1930
- Architects: Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells
- Style: Art Deco
- Address: 220 East 42nd Street, Manhattan
- Height: 36 stories, 476 ft (145 m)
- National Historic Landmark: Yes; NRHP November 14, 1982; NYC Landmark March 10, 1998
- Commissioner: Joseph Medill Patterson, founder of the New York Daily News
History
Joseph Medill Patterson founded the New York Daily News in 1919 as a tabloid aimed at the city’s working-class readers. By the late 1920s the paper had achieved the highest daily circulation in the United States, and Patterson commissioned Hood and Howells to design a building that would be both a functional newspaper plant and a landmark on 42nd Street — already the street that anchored Midtown’s identity. The architects filed blueprints in June 1928; construction proceeded rapidly, and the paper began moving into the building in February 1930.
Hood and Howells brought complementary strengths to the commission. Hood and Howells had previously collaborated on the Tribune Tower in Chicago, which they completed in 1925 after winning the famous 1922 international competition; Hood had also completed the American Radiator Building in midtown (1924), whose dark-brick tower with gilded crown ornament had established his command of the Art Deco idiom. The Daily News Building extended Hood’s interest in the interplay between mass and surface — the white brick facade with its dark spandrel panels and unbroken vertical window bands gave the building a graphic clarity that influenced later commercial architecture.
The rotunda lobby with its slowly rotating globe became famous almost immediately. When Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman in the early 1930s, they modeled the fictional Daily Planet building on the Daily News Building — the globe, the layout, and the newspaper setting were all drawn from the real structure. The Daily News left the building in 1995; it was sold in 1982 and subsequently passed through several institutional owners. The building received NYC Landmark designation in 1998, cementing its status as one of the defining structures of interwar Midtown.
What you see
The facade is organized by a strict vertical rhythm: alternating bays of windows and white-brick wall panels rise without interruption from the lower floors to the upper setbacks, creating the streamlined effect that Hood sought. Dark brick spandrel panels accent the horizontal layers between floor levels, holding the vertical piers in check. The overall composition is more restrained than the Chrysler Building one block west, relying on proportion and surface texture rather than ornament to achieve its impact.
The rotunda lobby remains the building’s most celebrated interior. A large carved-granite entrance at 42nd Street leads into the circular room, whose centerpiece is a painted globe set into the floor — slowly rotating on its axis, surrounded by brass inlays marking compass points and time zones. The lobby ceiling and walls continue the Art Deco program in restrained geometric ornament; the scale of the space, generous enough to let visitors stand back from the globe, makes the rotating sphere feel genuinely theatrical rather than merely decorative.
Practical information
- Status: Active office building; lobby accessible during business hours
- Globe: Visible from the lobby rotunda; slowly rotating throughout the day
- Photography: Exterior unrestricted from 42nd Street; lobby by arrangement
- Nearest transit: Grand Central–42nd Street station (4/5/6/7/S lines), one block west; also accessible from 42nd Street–Bryant Park (B/D/F/M)
- Time needed: 20 minutes for exterior and lobby
Getting there
The Daily News Building is at 220 East 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, one block east of Grand Central Terminal. LaGuardia Airport (LGA) is approximately 8 miles northeast via taxi or the M60 Select Bus Service. The building is a short walk from the Chrysler Building, Tudor City, and the Ford Foundation Building, making it a natural stop on any Midtown Art Deco walking tour. GPS: 40.74972°N, 73.97306°W.
Nearby
- Chrysler Building (1930) — Hood’s contemporary and the most celebrated Art Deco tower in New York, one block west
- Grand Central Terminal (1913) — Beaux-Arts landmark, one block west on 42nd Street
- Tudor City (1928) — residential Art Deco enclave directly across Second Avenue
- Ford Foundation Building (1968) — glass-atrium landmark across 42nd Street to the north
Sources
- Wikipedia: Daily News Building
- National Register of Historic Places: November 14, 1982
- New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission: March 10, 1998
- Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat — Daily News Building documentation
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