The McGraw-Hill Building (330 West 42nd Street in Manhattan) was completed in 1931 and is known for its exterior of blue-green terra-cotta ceramic tiles, alternating with green-metal-framed windows. The building was nicknamed the “Jolly Green Giant,” cited in print since at least 1969. (The Jolly Green Giant is the famous mascot of Green Giant frozen and canned vegetables.)
 
McGraw-Hill publishers moved to 1221 Avenue of the Americas in 1969.
 
   
Wikipedia: 330 West 42nd Street
330 West 42nd Street is also known as the McGraw Hill Building. The original McGraw-Hill building was located at 469 Tenth Avenue. This second McGraw-Hill building, on 42nd Street (33 stories, 485 ft / 148 m) was completed in 1931, the same year as the completion of the Empire State Building. The architect was Raymond Hood. The exterior walls of the building are panels of blue-green terra-cotta ceramic tiles, alternating with green-metal-framed windows, with a strongly horizontal orientation. The building was the only New York building shown in the influential International Style exhibition in 1932, and it has also been cited as a landmark of Art Deco design.
 
23 November 1969, Sunday World-Herald (Omaha, NE), Magazine, pg. 39, col. 3:
‘Green Giant’
In New York publishing circles, McGraw-Hill & Company is known as “The Jolly Green Giant” and with reason. The firm is now building a 51-story skyscraper to house its operation. Formed in 1931, the giant is now one of the world’s largest book firms.
 
Google Books
The Landmarks of New York
By Barbaralee Diamonstein
New York, NY: Abrams
1988
Pg. 367:
Sometimes affectionately referred to as the “jolly green giant,” the McGraw-Hill Building is one of New York’s great modern buildings, and one of the very few structures in the city to have been included in Henry Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson’s 1932 exhibition, “The International Style.”
   
flickr
Taken on July 4, 2007
Wally Gobetz
NYC - Hell’s Kitchen: McGraw Hill Building
330 West 42nd Street, also known as the McGraw Hill Building, was completed in 1931 to the design of Raymond Hood, replacing the original McGraw-Hill building located on 10th Avenue. The 33-floor, 485-foot art deco tower, nicknamed “The Jolly Green Giant”, features exterior panels of blue-green terra-cotta ceramic tiles, alternating with green-metal-framed windows, with a strongly horizontal orientation.
     
Rotating Coupler
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2009
Favorite Buildings - McGraw-Hill Building
McGraw-Hill Building
New York City -1931-
The McGraw-Hill Building or aka “Jolly Green Giant” for the era that it was built was a very radical choice in colors.  It is clad in a turquoise green terra cotta, the same color is used on a smaller Art Deco building in Los Angeles that I may also post on.  Art Deco is one of my favorite styles of architecture and I will finally use it on my next structure.
 
McGraw-Hill no longer resides in this building but like the Chrysler Building it still carries the moniker it was born with. 
 
Google Books
Muslims and American Popular Culture
Edited by Anne Rypstat Richards and Iraj Omidvar
Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, LLC
2014
Pg. 300:
A twentieth-century example of an Islamic-influenced commercial structure found in the same area is the McGraw-Hill building, called the “jolly green giant” due to its bluish-green terra cotta bricks, unprecedented at the time it was built.