It wasn’t a masterwork, but it was the master’s work. Every day, hundreds of people walked by the gleaming space, but few may have realized its significance. A hidden gem in plain sight, the Hoffman Auto Showroom at 430 Park Avenue, opened in 1955. It was one of just three Frank Lloyd Wright projects in New York City. And now, it’s gone.

The sleek showroom captured by the astute eye of Ezra Stoller, 1955. Courtesy of Ezra Stoller © Esto / Yossi Milo Gallery

Wright’s bijou, as he described it,[i] was the architect’s first permanent work in the city, his first constructed automotive design, and one of his few interior-only projects. Realized during New York’s post-World War II commercial construction boom, it was the architect’s single gesture along the corporate corridor of International Style buildings designed by his rivals, the “glass box boys.”[ii] The showroom’s signature ramp was also one of Wright’s several design experiments with the spiral, culminating in the Guggenheim Museum.

The showroom was a bijou to me, too. It’s a character in my book, Frank Lloyd Wright in New York: The Plaza Years, 1954-1959. I spent considerable time studying, visiting, and writing about it. Imagine my shock on a warm day last month when I walked by showroom and witnessed it being gutted. A woman in construction gear, standing in front of the open doorway waved pedestrians past clouds of dust and dumpsters filled with the showroom’s remains en route to a nearby dump truck. Read more…

“Hello, Debra, this is Edgar T. calling,” a jovial voice would chirp from my answering machine on Saturday mornings. Whether I picked up or not, he would continue: “The other Edgar was E.J., you know—Edgar Kaufmann.”

Edgar Tafel, who recently died at the age of 98, was the last surviving member of Frank Lloyd Wright’s original Fellowship. To me, and many others, he was history incarnate—propelling the past forward, granting us a tantalizing glimpse into the machinations of “the world’s greatest architect” (as Wright once termed himself) at a zenith of his career. Edgar was the man who carried “Mr. Wright’s” drawings in to the Johnson Wax Building presentation. He sharpened Wright’s pencils as he rushed to create the Fallingwater drawings before E.J., en route to Taliesin from just 140 miles away, showed up in the drafting room. Subsequently, Edgar would be involved with the construction of both of these iconic buildings as well as Wingspread (Wind Point, Wisconsin), the sprawling home of Johnson Wax president, Herbert F. Johnson. Edgar was mythical. And I was his friend.

Image: Edgar Tafel with his 1995 Wright Spirit Award, a bell designed by Paolo Soleri (also a Taliesin Fellow), at the entry of his weekend home in Springs (East Hampton), New York, August 1998. Edgar also had a winter home in Venice, Florida. Read more…