Raymond Loewy streamlines Jay Thorpe

Expansion and Renovation, 1944

Continuing on from this newsletter…

By 1944, Jay Thorpe’s two buildings (24-26 West 57th Street and 25 West 56th) were not enough. 1943 had been a record year, with the highest sales in the company’s history. It was decided that they should expand again—this time not constructing a whole new building but leasing an adjoining space. In April 1944, Jay Thorpe leased the main floor, mezzanine and second floor of 20-22 West 57th Street—giving them now 100 feet of frontage on Fifty-Seventh Street and 12,00 square feet more selling space. Previously, the space had been Ronnie Simon Bruck-Weiss (a millinery shop that appears to have opened in 1937) and was sorely in need of a redesign to bring it up to the level of elegant luxury that Jay Thorpe was known for. The French-born American industrial designer Raymond Loewy was chosen to take on this task.

Raymond Loewy with his Pennsylvania GG-1 Locomotive, 1934. Hagley Museum collection.

While Loewy is largely considered “The Father of Industrial Design”—as well as “The Man Who Shaped America”—he began his career as a fashion illustrator and window designer for NYC department stores in the 1920s. By the time he was commissioned by Jay-Thorpe, he was already a design star—responsible for creating the first streamlined locomotives for the Pennsylvania railroad, redesigning the Lucky Strike logo, helping streamline Studebaker cars and remaking their logo, and designing the Coldspot refrigerator—all icons of American cultural life. While Raymond is generally remembered for designing appliances, packaging (he famously refined the Coca-Cola bottle in the 1950s) and vehicles, throughout his career his company also took on interior design work—most notably, in the late 1950s he designed cruise ships while in the 1970s he worked with NASA to produce interior designs for the Apollo and Skylab orbiters. In 1962, he redesigned the livery and interior of Air Force One for President John F. Kennedy; Loewy’s original livery is still in use today with simply a subtle change of shade.

Coffee shop designed by Raymond Loewy, New York International Airport (now John F. Kennedy International Airport), Queens, New York, 1962. Photo by Samuel H. Gottscho. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.