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NEW YORK -- On the second-floor terrace of the International Building at 51st Street near Fifth Avenue, a seven-room dwelling is under construction as the focal point in what is designed to be a home-building center and exhibit. It is being erected by the Rockefeller Home Center, successor to the Permanent Exhibition of Decorative Arts and Crafts (PEDAC).
The dwelling is of modern design by Edward D. Stone and the exterior is of redwood. In the first floor is a "three-purpose" room with a glass-enclosed side opening onto a terrace. Construction of the exhibition house, which is sponsored by Collier's magazine, is under direction of Irons & Reynolds, contractors.-- News item, May 16, 1940
July 15, 1940. "Collier's House at PEDAC, New York City. Exterior from below. Dan Cooper, decorator; Edward Durrell Stone, architect." Large-format acetate negative by Gottscho-Schleisner. View full size.
When I was a kid in the 50's, if my Dad was hemmed in like that Plymouth, he would just gently push up against the Buick and push it a few feet to make room - that was when cars had real bumpers and most cars were manual transmission so you wouldn't risk breaking the parking pawl in the automatic tranny. Of course you had to worry about possibly locking bumpers! It's always SOMETHING, eh?
It looks as though the lower portion has been rebuilt or modified. The original was squared off. The current is angled out to the corner of the building.
Look through any issue of Dwell magazine and this home design would be featured as contemporary.
Three of the four lower wings of the Rockefeller Center buildings facing Fifth Avenue are named after foreign countries. You have the British Empire Building and La Maison Francaise on the other side of 50th Street from the International Building. On the International Building itself, completed in the late 1930's, the south wing was the Palazzo d'Italia, while the north wing - the one pictured here - was supposed to be called Deutsches Haus. What with the rise of Hitler and the deteriorating situation in Germany, however, that name became a complete non-starter, and this wing is rather uncreatively called the "International Building North" instead.
The car wedged between the '40 Buick and the '39 Packard.
I think it is a Plymouth, about 1937.
The car, I believe a Pontiac, sandwiched between the Packard and the Buick is going to have a tough time getting out of that tight space. His only hope is that the Buick leaves first. We can't tell if the Packard isn't landlocked as well.
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