The Madison Avenue Con Ed building at 32nd–33rd Streets was an imposing former utility building that drew Andy Warhol because it seemed less like an ordinary commercial property than a vast, unfinished creative space. Its appeal lay in the same qualities that made it a financial and practical risk: a monumental interior, no heating, and no prospect of rental income.

Design and condition

Warhol viewed the building on August 17, 1981. Its main room was large and T-shaped, a space he imagined could house an Interview office. The five-story interior was an unheated shell; adding hot-air heating and toilets might make it usable as an artists’ space. He admired its beauty, describing the prospect of buying it as akin to acquiring a beautiful work of art. Its fortress-like character added to the impression of a singular, self-contained place.

One detail cut through the grandeur with an everyday practicality: a corner newsstand had eight pay phones, which Warhol joked could be used to send people out to make calls. The building offered both the scale of an artistic project and the mundane infrastructure of a working office, though the latter would have to be created or improvised.

The choice against 895 Broadway

Warhol repeatedly compared the Con Ed building with a conventional five-story property at 895 Broadway, near 20th Street. The Broadway building was already substantial and fully rented, with the possibility of freeing one floor for Warhol’s group while collecting rent from the others. The Con Ed building, by contrast, could not be rented out, and its conversion costs were uncertain.

By August 26, the financial contrast was explicit: the Madison Avenue property was priced at $2 million, against $1.8 million for 895 Broadway. Warhol considered the Con Ed building’s position across from the Empire State Building and its potential to become a “goldmine,” while worrying about the cost and difficulty of renovating it. A 12 percent mortgage was available, which made the purchase more attractive. Fred Hughes faced the same dilemma, weighing an exceptional artistic space against a practical income-producing investment.

Decision and significance

On August 27, Warhol recorded that they had decided to get the building at Madison and 32nd. The choice settled the comparison in favor of the property’s distinctive scale and artistic promise, despite the costs, the lack of rental income, and the work still required to make the shell functional. The decision left immediate financial steps ahead: Warhol was nervous about signing a letter and writing a check, and noted that he would see what happened. The diary records a decision to pursue the building, not a completed purchase or the eventual realization of the proposed office and artists’ space.