A lost art  Historic terra-cotta skyscraper yields to precast
and glass-fiber-reinforced concrete August 11, 2010  Once the
tallest structure in New York City's midtown area, the 1912
Candler Building is 24 stories of highly ornamented windows,
balustrades and cornices, adorned with white terra-cotta tiles.
The freestanding tower also boasts what, at the time, was a
cutting-edge, smoke-free egress design that allowed the tower to
forego the traditional, if unsightly, open metal fire escape.
Despite its innovation, rich ornamentation and unique history
(see "The Candler Building: A short history," page 46), by the
early 1990s the Candler Building stood vacant and deteriorating,
literally crumbling piece by piece at the center of a Times
Square riddled with filth and despair. Lost in a sea of mammoth
billboards, neon pop-art advertisements and a giant smoke-ring-
blowing head, the old tower was structurally sound-but in danger
of losing its skin.   By 1993, when Massachusetts Mutual Life
Insurance Co. took owne