The Pershing Square Building is at 125 Park Avenue in the Midtown and Murray Hill neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City.

[8] John Sloan's plan for the Pershing Square Building called for a U-shaped tower above a five-story rectangular base, used in many other New York City skyscrapers erected before the 1916 Zoning Resolution.

[14] Sloan also had to design the top floors in order to meet the conditions that the BSA had set in exchange for allowing the Pershing Square Building's zoning variance.

For instance, since the cornice could not project more than 1 foot (30 cm) from the building lot line, Sloan's design incorporated corbelling at the top of the facade, and a setback two-story attic above the 23rd floor.

[15] The attics, with their roofs made of red tiles, resembled "a villa on the hilltop", as described by architect Charles Downing Lay.

[15][16] The building facade is clad in beige brick, with elaborate decoration designed by Sloan and produced by the Atlantic Terra Cotta Company.

[9] The decorated terracotta tiles were manufactured by Atlantic Terra Cotta, which used small pieces to provide a similarity with the brick cladding.

The tiles' colors were characterized by Atlantic Terra Cotta's journal as "a soft gray fire-flashed with golden brown".

[15][12] The New York City Subway's Grand Central–42nd Street station, serving the 4, ​5, ​6, <6>​, 7, <7>​​, and S trains, is located directly underneath the northwest corner of the Pershing Square Building.

[21] A set of platforms at Grand Central, now serving the IRT Lexington Avenue Line (4, ​5, ​6, and <6> trains), was to be built diagonally under the building site as part of the agreement.

[22][23] At the time, the site under the proposed station was occupied by Grand Union Hotel, which was condemned via eminent domain in February 1914.

[28] The 25-story building's site, and the portion of Park Avenue immediately adjacent to it, was renamed Pershing Square in 1919 to honor World War I general John J.

Mandel gave the Bowery Savings Bank the eastern half of the hotel site, which would be developed into an office building at 110 East 42nd Street.

[43][11] Though the Fifth Avenue Association filed a complaint with the city's Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA) to enforce the zoning code, Sloan stated that the inclusion of setbacks would be structurally unsafe, expensive, as well as a contravention of the existing agreement.

The BSA ruled in favor of the Pershing Square Building Corporation,[43] as the footings had been laid before the zoning resolution was passed.

[15][46] The following year, in 1925, real estate operator Louis Frankel filed a lawsuit in the New York Supreme Court against Samuel Leidesdorf, alleging that he had been denied the profits from the Pershing Square Building's construction, and sought to have all stock in the Pershing Square Building Corporation transferred to him.

[49][50] This name was dropped in 1970,[50] and the following year the Leidesdorf estate sold the Pershing Square Building to Prudential Financial.

[58][59][1] A New-York Tribune article in January 1923 stated that, although the Pershing Square Building was not complete yet, its space was 60% leased.

[15][60] At the time, the lessees included International Paper[61] and the Royal Baking Powder Company, as well as York & Sawyer's own offices.

[15] The Pershing Square Building served as a hub or offices for several transportation companies in the bus and aviation industries.

In 1929, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad started using the Pershing Square Building as one of its waiting rooms for intercity buses, after its previous terminal at Pennsylvania Station had closed down.

Pandora Media and Robert Half International were among the other relatively recent companies who took space in the building,[50] while Canon USA subsidiary MCS Business Solutions moved its headquarters to 125 Park Avenue in 1998.

[68] Later reviews were more critical; in 2013, the Real Estate Board of New York published a report claiming that the Pershing Square Building's design "was old-fashioned even before it was finished".