Photo Credit: Roving Rube. Viewpoint: 48th St. and 5th Ave., looking southwest; 1/26/02 11:44 AM.

Notes (Roving Rube): The Swiss Center, aka the Goelet Building, may be unique in NYC in its abundant use of green marble in the facade.

One tour guide also singled it out as Manhattan's only Art Nouveau skyscraper.

Completed in 1931, it also seems to be a pioneering example of a skyscraper on "stilts" -- the bottom is wrapped in plate glass so that the supporting columns are exposed to view. The only thing the Rube would object to is that the white covering of the columns has a bland wallboard or plastic look to it, out of keeping with the other materials.