Morning View - Lipstick Building

At 53rd & Third, the 34-story Phillip Johnson co-designed Lipstick Building went up in 1986. Built to resemble a tube of red lipstick (I see brown, but whatevs) the tower is home to the headquarters of the massive international law firm, Latham & Watkins.

The Lipstick is my favorite Phillip Johnson building in Manhattan. His Seagram Building (co-designed with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe), the 1958 landmark "classic of corporate modernism" and first of the dreary glass boxes which bore the sky of cities worldwide, leaves me completely cold.

Last month an Israeli investment group agreed to buy the Lipstick for $648M, continuing Manhattan's march toward complete foreign ownership.