It is three blocks north of Rockefeller Center, the headquarters of CBS's rival NBC.

The building, developed for broadcasting company CBS, was designed to occupy only 60 percent of its site. The CBS Building stands directly above a New York City Subway tunnel connecting the Sixth Avenue and 53rd Street subway lines. Nearby buildings include the Credit Lyonnais Building to the west, the New York Hilton Midtown to the northwest, 53W53 to the north, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) to the northeast, the 53rd Street Library and 21 Club to the east, and 75 Rockefeller Plaza to the southeast. The site has a frontage of 255 feet (78 m) on 52nd Street to the south, with a depth of 200 feet (61 m) between 52nd and 53rd streets. It is on the eastern side of Sixth Avenue (officially Avenue of the Americas ) between 52nd and 53rd Streets. The CBS Building is at 51 West 52nd Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Harbor Group International agreed to buy the structure in August 2021. CBS attempted to sell the building twice between 19, and ViacomCBS again attempted to sell it in early 2020. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the CBS Building as a city landmark in 1997. The building initially served as the headquarters of CBS, which occupied all the above-ground space until the early 1990s, when it started leasing some stories to other tenants. The first employees moved into the building in late 1964 and it was completed the following year. The design was finalized in 1961 and, despite Saarinen's death shortly afterward, construction started in 1962. The building's superstructure is made of reinforced concrete, and steel beams are only used below ground the concrete frame uses polyurethane insulation. The building has a gross floor area of approximately 800,000 square feet (74,000 m 2). The facade was designed to make the building appear as a continuous slab. The 'Black Rock' nickname is derived from the design of its facade, which consists of angled dark-gray granite piers alternating with dark-tinted glass. The building is on Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) between 52nd and 53rd streets, although its main entrances are on the side streets. The building was also the headquarters of CBS Records (later Sony Music Entertainment) before the early 1990s.

The interior spaces and furnishings were designed by Saarinen and Florence Knoll Bassett.

The building was constructed from 1961 to 1964 and was the only skyscraper designed by Eero Saarinen, who referred to the building as the 'simplest skyscraper statement in New York'. It is the headquarters of the CBS broadcasting network. The CBS Building, also known as Black Rock, is a 38-story, 491-foot-tall (150 m) tower at 51 West 52nd Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City.

Her Name Is Murder by A.C. Merkel