In the mid-1930s, the Steuben Glass Company (a division of Corning) commissioned architects William and Geoffrey Platt and John M. Gates to design a new headquarters for the firm which highlighted its product. The facade was four times more glass then limestone. The limestone acted as a frame for the 3,800 glass blocks made of Corning's Pyrex. The critics were mixed regarding the design. One called it ''a definite disappointment,'' while Lewis Mumford thought it ''simple and excellent." A local newspaper suggested that the facade of fixed windows could be ''washed off with a hose, dust and grime coming off as if it were a mirror.'' In 1959 Steuben decamped to an even more modern and glassy building across the street. No. 718's new owner, the jeweler Harry Winston, gave the building a neo-Classical travertine facade with entirely different fenestration (arrangement of windows and doors). Today the building looks much like it did following the 1960 renovation

In the early 1910s, the building was taken over by art and antique dealer Charles Duveen (brother to the more famous dealer Joseph Duveen). Charles added the sixth floor (with his name boldly advertised at the top) and toned down the facade decoration.

Built in 1872 this brownstone structure at the southwest corner of Fifth and 56th was appropriately ornate for early Fifth Avenue. The building featured prominent quoins (masonry bricks at the corners), fancy bulls-eye windows, and a decorative stone railing at the roofline. Originally a home, in the 1890s the ground floor was converted for commercial use. During the 1910s and 1920s, the building was home to a number of art and antique showrooms and galleries

718 Fifth Avenue ca. 1937 718 Fifth Avenue was designed by Platt and Platt in 1937. The grand five-story structure on Fifth Avenue and 56th Street announcing glass as the epitome of modernity. The façade of Indiana limestone and 2 large windows made of 3,800 square panes of translucent glass at night revealed divisions between floors and diagonal bracing, all the while showcasing the glass, another architectural advertisement.