And from what Production Designer Stuart Craig told us when we visited the set of Fantastic Beasts back in December, J.K. Rowling did a lot of research before deciding where MACUSA would be headquartered, and it sounds like two factors led to the Woolworth Building being the right choice, one of which is the Gothic look of it…
It’s a key location in the Harry Potter spinoff movie, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them.
As it turns out, the presence of an owl in the architecture of the iconic New York City building is part of what sold J.K. Rowling on making it the setting of MACUSA, the Magical Congress of the United States of America.