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