Other nearby places include the New York Public Library Main Branch one block to the north, as well as the Lord & Taylor Building to the southeast.

[17][18][21] The industrialist Andrew Carnegie, who financed the building's construction, owned a private residence at 23 West 39th Street, thus preserving views from the east.

[26] The adjacent structure at 23 West 39th Street, designed for the Engineers' Club, has a storefront and a five-story, two-bay-wide brick facade.

The rest of each arch contains a glass-and-iron frame, as well as a console bracket above the center and carved fronds at the corner spandrels.

Within the outer bays, each of the sixth through eleventh stories contains a rectangular window with a sill at the bottom and a stone panel at the top.

The auditorium was designed around a small speaking platform, rather than around a large stage, so all audience members could easily see the speaker at all times.

The front of the gallery was bordered in red plush, and the proscenium arch contained a decorative cartouche with the badges of the three founding societies.

[25][38] Some of the original decorative details remain in the fifth floor's large assembly rooms, such as moldings, wall paneling, and ceilings.

[42] The eastern end of the reading room, facing the elevators, had a bronze bust of Andrew Carnegie, carved by Mrs. E. Cadwalader Guild.

When fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger used the building as a showroom, there was a grand suite on the sixteenth floor, with three private bathrooms, a kitchen, and a dining room.

[13][14] On February 9, 1903, Carnegie attended a dinner for the AIEE's library, where the institute's president talked about the need for a shared engineering societies' clubhouse.

Carnegie then talked with AIEE president Charles F. Scott and board chairman Calvin W. Rice over the idea of a new clubhouse.

[13][14][15] The ASCE had also been invited to join the Engineering Societies Building but declined, preferring to stay at its clubhouse at 220 West 57th Street.

"[62] After Carnegie's gift, the ASME, AIME, AIEE, and Engineers' Club formed a Conference Committee to plan the new buildings.

[11] Because of Carnegie's international fame and his large gift, the design process was to be "a semi-public matter of more than ordinary importance", as a 1907 article described it.

[65] Henry D. Whitfield and Beverly King, a relatively obscure firm that had nonetheless been formally invited,[57] won the commission for the Engineers' Club Building.

[66][67] Hale and Morse received one of the four prizes for non-invited architects; the others were Trowbridge & Livingston, Frank C. Roberts & Co. with Edgar V. Seeler, and Allen & Collens.

[64][65] The United Engineering Society, which represented the ASME, AIME, and AIEE, took title to the main land lot between 25 and 33 West 39th Street in December 1904.

[80] Among the other events in the building was a conference for an international association for testing materials, described as "the most important of its kind ever called together",[82][83] and a large stamp exhibition in 1913.

[89] In 1913, Beverly Sedgwick King designed a six-story annex to the Engineers' Club on the adjacent lot at 23 West 39th Street.

[93] The Engineering Societies' Building continued to be used for major events, as in 1925, when U.S. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover became an honorary ASCE member.

[106][107] A joint committee, consisting of three members each from the AIChE, ASCE, AIEE, AIME, and ASME, was created to determine the future of the clubhouse.

[108] In November 1956, Shreve, Lamb & Harmon were hired to conduct a study on whether to relocate the societies or redevelop the existing site.

[109] The Engineering Societies selected a site for a new clubhouse on First Avenue in Turtle Bay, Manhattan, across from the headquarters of the United Nations, in August 1957.

[36] This did not happen and, by 1963, Rudinger planned to convert the building into a photographic center for about 30 studios displaced from the soon-to-be-destroyed Grand Central Palace.

Structural engineer Eugene Ho determined the existing columns to be strong enough to support the weight of new floor slabs.

The top twelve office stories had 120,000 sq ft (11,000 m2) of space, occupied by tenants such as Lane Bryant and baby-food company Beech-Nut.

[124] As early as 2001, Hilfiger was considering selling 25 West 39th Street and an adjacent department store at 485 Fifth Avenue for a combined $100 million.

[80] Per the terms of the 2005 sale contract, if 25 West 39th Street was resold before December 2006, Hilfiger was entitled to claim 20 percent of any profit.

The buyer was legally 25 West 39th Street Realty, which in turn was controlled by a subsidiary of the Chetrit family; it transferred a full interest in the building to Thor Equities for $80 million in September 2006.