Baxter Building
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The Baxter Building is a fictitious Manhattan 35-story office building whose five upper floors house the Fantastic Four's headquarters in the Marvel Universe.
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Description
Located at 42nd Street and Madison Avenue in New York City, it had been built in 1949 by the Leland Baxter Paper Company. Originally designed as a high-rise industrial site to accommodate pulp recycling machinery to serve the mid-Manhattan area, each floor height is 24 feet.
The building's steel frame construction utilized the first application of "K bracing" in the world and is one of the strongest structures of its kind. The Baxter Building is located a few city blocks from the United Nations Building. Reed Richards has applied for many land-use zone variations to allow massive reconstruction of the top five floors for the installation of a heavily-silenced silo, with a muffled rocket.
The design of the headquarters of the Fantastic Four is along strictly utilitarian lines, except for apartments and public areas. All aspects of the design are constantly being improved, including security. For example, windows are 2 ft thick composites of various glasses and plastics which are mirrored on the outside. Solid, armored, exterior walls are also mirror-clad and are indistinguishable from transparent sections.
The top five sections of the Baxter Building are completely airtight; all doors are airlocks. Complete environmental support (including atmosphere) is provided by the area between elevators 2, 3, and 4 on all floors. The building's steel-alloy framework is rigid enough to be stood on one corner and not collapse.
The buffer-zone is the interface between the top five floors and the lower levels. It provides a rapid-disconnect between upper and lower segments of building. It contains an array of large oil-rams to dampen any oscillations between the five upper levels and the base of the building. The buffer-zone contains some support equipment for the upper levels, but mostly it is the "mechanical floor," which provides heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and elevator support equipment for the lower 30 stories.
Ownership
A running joke for years in the title was that the landlord was initially eager to rent out to a superhero team for the publicity and prestige, however, he soon regretted his decision, as the building became a constant target for numerous attacks by supervillains. The attacks made things difficult not only for the Four, but for the other tenants in the lower floors as well. Eventually, Reed Richards decided to invoke a clause of the rental agreement and bought the entire building to avoid eviction.
Iterations
Eventually, the building was destroyed by the adoptive son of Doctor Doom, who shot it into space and exploded it in a bid to murder the Fantastic Four. It was replaced by Four Freedoms Plaza. After the destruction of Four Freedoms Plaza the Fantastic Four moved to a retrofitted warehouse on the pier which they named Pier 4. The warehouse was destroyed during a battle with Diablo after which the team received a new Baxter Building courtesy of Reed's former professor Noah Baxter. This Baxter Building was constructed in Earth's orbit and teleported into the vacant lot formerly occupied by the original Baxter Building and Four Freedoms Plaza. The current Baxter Building's ground floor is used as a Fantastic Four gift shop and museum open to the public.
Ultimate Fantastic Four
In the Ultimate Marvel universe, the Baxter Building is a US government thinktank, where exceptionally gifted children are offered government positions to use their intelligence to serve their country. The government contacted Reed Richards because of his experiments in teleportation; they had found small toy cars that he had sent into the N-Zone. At the Baxter Building, Reed meets Professor Franklin Storm; his 2 children Susan & Johnny; aswell as Victor Von Damme (Dr Doom).
In this version, the Mole Man is originally Dr. Molekevic, a former employee of the Baxter Building. His service is terminated when his projects are deemed "unethical" (one such project is presumedly the Mole Men that appear in the latter half of the first story arc).es:Edificio Baxter