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The Seat Of Lucifer

Thu, 08/19/2004 - 12:12 — deadprogrammer

For a long time the nighttime skyline of midtown Manhattan had a small but very unsettling detail. There, amongst gleaming lights of skyscrapers, it floated. A red neon "666". Were the Satanists so bold as to purchase a giant advertising like that? Were they that wealthy? There is a company called 999 Pharmaceutical and for a while I thought that it was actually 999 somehow reflected from a mirrored surface. I haven't seen the red neon 666 lately and kind of stopped wondering.

Yesterday, while researching Isamu Noguchi, I noticed that he designed the lobby at 666 5th Avenue. On a whim I decided to find the picture of the building - and lo and behold - the mysterious 666 turned out to be the building number made into a decorative neon sign atop that particular skyscraper.

Known then as the Tishman Building it served as headquarters for the company that built amongst other buildings World Trade Center and John Hancock Center. They will be building the Freedom Tower as well.

In 2002 either because of 9/11 or because Tishman sold the building (although the corporation still has offices there) or maybe because they finally understood that having a giant neon 666 on a building that is right next to St. Thomas Church is not kosher, "666" was replaced with a more powerful symbol of evil - the Citicorp umbrella :

(earlier I wrote about a different evil Citi neon umbrella logo )

The top floor of the building used to house an awesome restaurant called "Top Of The Sixes". These days it houses an exclusive cigar lounge called The Grand Havana Room. Check it out: floor to ceiling windows with views to die for, overstuffed (I've never heard about an understaffed one) chairs, cigar vaults with personal, shared and corporate humidors and other niceties.

Unfortunately, from what I learned on Usenet, membership is 3K per year. I guess they follow the gym pricing structure (in fact a gym membership in NYC can easily cost that much).

I also remembered that Lebedev Studio(or whatever it's called these days) has a forwarding mailbox at 666 5th. There must be a mailbox store in the building, but I did not notice one when I was there today.

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Comments

Sun, 08/14/2005 - 07:36 — Tishman (not verified)

I strongly urge anyone who lives in the New York area to go and picket in front of this building until it's address is removed from the building. Write to your senator, governor, and mayor on changing the address to 665 1/2. How is the 13th floor of every building in New York skipped, but this number is left in? The audacity of the Tishman family to purposely flaunt this number in NEON right above a neighboring church is so extreme it is almost EVIL. I don't know what this says about the company they keep, religious or financial, but I know what it says about them. Please take consideration in your fellow human beings, and in your own lives, and rid this building of it's horrible taste.


Thu, 03/30/2006 - 18:01 — rabidhaus (not verified)

Hi.
I live in Tokyo Japan and the company I work with
has business dealings with 999 Pharmaceutals.
They manufacture traditional Chinese Medicine in
People's Republic of China. Mostly over the counter stuff to be sold in Japan.
Actually, they're pretty normal.
You should know that there's a superstition that
goes:
"Superstition brings bad luck"

ciao


Fri, 06/08/2007 - 05:14 — Demosthenis Harizopoulos (not verified)

Copyright
ENRON
Delivered

Jupiter and Mars align
A.D. 10044
GREEN IN

Seat of Lucifer 300


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