I had a meeting at Ernst & Young’s U.S. headquarters this afternoon, which is in a 40-story skyscraper at 5 Times Square. They do a lot more than corporate auditing, financing and taxes. Their Real Estate Advisory Services group covers areas like hospitality (hotels and other such lodging), construction, investment funds, REITs (real estate investment trusts) and more. They do simple things like issue reports on the state of the hotel market recovery and, more actively, quietly conduct big real-estate related jobs, like structuring the financial models for the Port Authority in its rebuilding of the public transportation infrastructure in the former World Trade Center area.
The meeting itself was your typical meeting, something about synergy. The cool part was the building itself. Probably because of its location, there’s a giant (maybe 20-story) narrow vertical sign mounted to the building’s facade that spells out “Ernst & Young” in blatant red neon. At night, you can see it from dozens of block away down Seventh Avenue, and it’s actually helped orient me on more than one occasion.
Our meeting was in a conference room on the 23rd floor, which afforded a spectacular 180 degree panoramic view of the city's west and south sides, including a bird’s eye view of the active construction for the New York Times’ new headquarters, which will effectively block a lot of E&Y’s view of the West Side and Jersey beyond.
Also, the building’s security, at least on the surface, seems really tight, compared with, say, our building. In a logbook, you sign-in your name, date and time, and who you’re seeing. Then they take a digital photo of you that’s presumably logged somewhere. It’s also printed unflatteringly on a temporary ID badge, which also lists your name, where you’re from, the date, how long you’re authorized to be in the building, who you’re meeting with and what floor they’re on. Of course, as one of the E&Y guys sarcastically pointed out, once you’re done with these theatrics and get past the lobby, you can wander around pretty much anywhere in the building, your ID badge unchecked by anyone. Ah, semblance of security; post-9/11 Manhattan knows you all too well.