NEW YORK CITY—Last week, JPMorgan Chase announced it is building new headquarters, replacing its current 1.5 million square-foot, 50-story office tower at 270 Park Ave. with a 2.5 million square-foot, 70-story one. This would be the first major project to be developed under the city's Midtown East rezoning plan approved last year.
Architecture preservationists, Docomomo US and Docomomo US New York/Tri-State, on Friday, submitted a joint letter to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission requesting they designate the building as a landmark.
The organization, whose full name is the Committee for Documentation and Conservation of Buildings, Sites and Neighborhoods of the Modern Movement, says the bank headquarters, formerly the Union Carbide Building, is an icon of corporate modernism.
The Docomomo leaders say the building, designed by the pioneering woman architect Natalie de Blois, and Gordon Bunshaft, both of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and constructed from 1958 to 1960, is one of the most elegant and significant office towers on Park Avenue and in Midtown Manhattan.
The Docomomo chapters have a history with the building. In February 2012, they led the request for evaluating 270 Park Ave. for landmark status. In 2013, the Landmarks Preservation Commission conveyed to them that the building was in the top tier of “properties [that] may merit designation” in the Midtown East rezoning area.
Other projects in this top tier included the Universal Pictures Building at 445 Park Ave., the Girl Scouts Building at 830 Third Ave., and the United States Post Office, Franklin D. Roosevelt Station located at 909 Third Ave. Five years later, none of these properties have been calendared for designation.
The Landmarks Preservation Commission began the process of designation of 270 Park Ave. along with seven other buildings, according to Theodore H.M. Prudon, president of Docomomo US, and John Arbuckle, president of Docomomo US NY/Tri-State. However, no public discussion regarding the building's landmark status has occurred, yet its demolition has been announced.
Prudon and Arbuckle have urged the agency to calendar 270 Park Ave. for local designation. “The goals of one large corporation should not nullify or ignore the public interest, the law or the authority of one agency over another,” they say. They assert it is the commission's mandate to protect the cultural and architectural resources of New York City.
The groups have not yet heard back from the commission.
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Betsy Kim
Betsy Kim was the bureau chief, East Coast, and New York City reporter for Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com. As a lawyer and journalist, Betsy has worked as the director of editorial and content for LexisNexis Lawyers.com, a TV/multi-media journalist for NBC and CBS affiliated TV stations in the Midwest, and an associate producer at Court TV.
