Completed in 1974 and designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, it is west of Fifth Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets, overlooking the Plaza Hotel and Central Park.

The Solow Building's north and south facades curve inward from ground level to the 18th floor, where the tower rises upward to the 50th story.

Since opening, the Solow Building's office stories have been occupied for some of the highest rates in the city, being rented largely to law and financial firms.

[9][11] 9 West 57th Street was designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) and developed by Sheldon Solow.

[41] The first floor also houses Solow's private art gallery, including works by Franz Kline, Henri Matisse, and Alberto Giacometti.

The gallery is managed under the non-profit Solow Art and Architecture Foundation, which receives tax exemptions from being nominally open to the public.

[48] The typical upper story has a rectangular layout around a service core in the center, which contains the building's elevators and stairs.

[8] Sheldon Solow started acquiring parcels on 57th and 58th Streets in 1965,[55] hiring several brokers to avoid raising suspicion that he was assembling a large lot.

[10] While Solow could not outright buy 4 West 58th Street, he acquired a leasehold on the building, as well as air rights that allowed an increase in the size of his proposed skyscraper.

[55] In early 1970, Solow announced that his 50-story office building would contain 1.5 million square feet (140,000 m2), a third of which was leased by Avon.

[66] Though 9 West 57th Street was completed when large numbers of companies were leaving New York City, Solow was not worried about the trend.

[80][81] By contrast, aside from banking tenants, the commercial space at the ground level and basements sat largely empty through to the end of the 20th century.

[88] Most of Avon's old space was occupied by Nationsbanc Montgomery Securities, which had been acquired by NationsBank and then merged with BankAmerica Corporation, parent company of Bank of America.

Though the trading floor was able to fit 300 people, Solow had refused to make alterations to allow the bank to add 200 traders.

The vacancies were in part because Solow asked much higher rates per square foot compared to nearby buildings, and he was obstinate in not charging lower rents.

[98] Though Solow was able to attract additional tenants over the next year, the building continued to face problems, including in 2011, when all but one of the elevators between the lobby and 27th floor simultaneously failed.

[101] The same year, two tenants signed large leases,[102] and Solow refinanced the building with a $625 million commercial mortgage-backed security (CMBS) loan from Deutsche Bank.

This was part of a trend in which buildings typically occupied by hedge funds and investment firms charged higher rents.

[108] Solow finally decided on lowering rental rates for some vacant space in late 2017 after several large tenants such as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Providence Equity, and Silver Lake left the building.

[114][115] The Real Deal attributed the building's high occupancy rate to its central location, as well as the fact that Soloviev was more involved with his tenants than his father had been.

[121] As of 2024[update], law firms and hedge funds continue to occupy much of the space, including:[122] The corporate offices of Avis Budget Group (37th floor) are also located in the building.

[77] The first such lawsuit involving the building was prompted when Solow refused to pay both Avon's broker and 9 West 57th Street's rental agent.

Avon's broker Williams Real Estate sought its promised commission, as did Cushman & Wakefield, which held a contract with Solow as the building's exclusive rental agent.

After a jury trial in State Supreme Court, in 1973, Solow was ordered to pay commissions of $150,000 to Cushman & Wakefield and $1.7 million to Williams.

A New York Times critic wrote in 1972, "a complaint voiced more frequently that the curved design of 9 West 57th Street has little relationship to the erect walls of its neighbors".

[138] Ada Louise Huxtable wrote for the same newspaper: "One can only pity one half of the Hotel Plaza's guests facing that 58th Street black glass wall".

[139] Arthur Drexler, in a foreword to a book about SOM's work, wrote that the controversy over the Solow Building was largely "because it does not rise straight up from the street (as architects have taught everyone to expect)".

[20] Jaquelin T. Robertson, the head of New York City's Office of Midtown Planning, likewise expressed his opposition to sloped structures, particularly those that were located in the middle of the block, as the Solow and Grace buildings both were.

"[142] Not everyone disliked the design of the Solow Building; it was regarded largely positively by the public, which expressed interest in 9 West 57th Street's unusual shape.

[25] According to Drexler, "the immense curved glass wall is an exhilarating spectacle, not as architecture but as urban theater, as fascinating as a fountain".