Barclays to brand Manhattan skyline

Barclays is seeking to emblaze its own brand outside the top floors of its tower at 745 Seventh Avenue, the Wall Street Journal reported. The British bank wants to make its mark on the Manhattan skyline by turning the top of the building, between 49th and 50th Streets, into a lantern and installing 10-foot letters and a 13-foot-6-inch-high version of the Barclays eagle emblem on all four sides of the exterior façade. Currently, the top of the building, which contains mechanical equipment, is sheathed in a clear glass curtain wall. The bank wants to cover that glass in a film that would make the curtain wall translucent rather than transparent and illuminate it from the inside to create a lantern effect on the skyline. In September 2008, Barclays took over the Lehman Brothers Holdings headquarters building and promptly staked its claim to Times Square by adding its logo to the
tower’s trademark video screens over Seventh Avenue. [WSJ]