488 Madison Avenue
office building in Manhattan, New York
488 Madison Avenue, also known as the Look Building, is a 25-story office building in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is along Madison Avenue's western sidewalk between 51st and 52nd Streets, near St. Patrick's Cathedral. 488 Madison Avenue was designed by Emery Roth & Sons in the International Style, and it was constructed and developed by Uris Brothers. The building was originally named for its primary tenant, the American magazine Look.
The building largely contains a facade of white brick, interspersed with horizontal strips of aluminum windows. The lowest two stories contain a main entrance on Madison Avenue as well as several glass-and-metal storefronts. The three sides are connected by curved walls. The exterior includes several setbacks to comply with the 1916 Zoning Resolution. Each of the building's stories contain an average floor area of 19,500 square feet (1,810 m2), a feature intended to maximize usable office space.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “488 Madison Avenue” as office building in Manhattan, New York. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as office building in Manhattan, New York. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q106422421. Authority coordinates are 40.759, -73.975. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1916.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “488 Madison Avenue”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 488 Madison Avenue primary sources, 488 Madison Avenue archive and Madison research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “488 Madison Avenue”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “488 Madison Avenue” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.