NEW YORK | 270 Park Ave | 1,389 FT | 57 FLOORS

[Amanita]

^Nice pics. I've got a good shot of 277's "tail" section, but I've never gotten a good one of 270's. Quite a few buildings around that time period had them (1290 6th avenue has quite the tail on her too!), probably a relic of setback requirements.

[NYguy]

^ The thing about the 270 base (and tower) is that it terminates the Vanderbilt vista, so it's easier to get a look at even when you're not next to it. I expect the new tower will do the same.

[NYguy]

https://archpaper.com/2018/03/please...bide-building/

The Union Carbide building should be torn down

By MATT SHAW
March 6, 2018

When news broke last week about JP Morgan Chase’s plans to tear down 270 Park Avenue, otherwise known as the Union Carbide Building, by Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), the New York architecture community predictably went up in arms. Critics like New York Magazine’s Justin Davidson lambasted the plans as “obscene,” while Curbed’s Alexandra Lange called the plan “shortsighted.”

But after the initial shock at such a huge building being torn down has faded—it would be the tallest building to be voluntarily demolished—there has still been little to no convincing argument offered for JP Morgan Chase to save the building.

The Union Carbide building should be torn down. In fact, we should cheer as it falls because it represents the worst of midcentury American corporate architecture, something that at the time was totalizing, banal, repetitive, and dogmatic—when everything began to look similar.

[JSsocal]

Originally Posted by NYguy

https://archpaper.com/2018/03/please...bide-building/

The Union Carbide building should be torn down

By MATT SHAW
March 6, 2018

Yikes what a twat. So what, save lever house and seagram and we're done saving midcentury modern buildings?

If his argument is that "they all look the same" & "1960s people were bad people and don't deserve to be remembered" then he shouldn't be writing editorials for AN.

This city saves districts and districts of row houses and prewar buildings even though they're markedly similar.

---------------------------

This project is still worth it, a new 1,200' building is exciting. But we should note that what's here now is exceptional.

Remember, they tore down the Waldorf Astoria for the Empire State Building. What's existing can be great, and what's to come can also be great.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by JSsocal

So what, save lever house and seagram and we're done saving midcentury modern buildings?

On Park Ave., yeah. There are no other midcentury bldgs on Park worth saving.

Union Carbide occupied this bldg from 1960 to 1981, when it moved its global HQ to Danbury, CT, during the great corporate HQ exodus from Manhattan to leafy suburbia. It then, like most Park Avenue towers, became a Wall Street bldg., more or less, eventually becoming Chase Manhattan HQ, and then Chase-JP Morgan HQ.

[JSsocal]

^Oh well on Park that's a different story. The only other building the LPC's considered there which I'm on the fence about is 445 park

[NYguy]

There are enough landmarks in the district. The issue has been visited, and revisited. That isn't the issue here anyway. The issue is whether the city was going to allow the district to fade as a top business district, and the answer was no (and why would it?). Chase, formerly one of the business intent on leaving, has decided to stay, largely due to the city's own rezoning. That, along with the rezoning of the Hudson Yards, has shown that the city can have a hand in its own fate. Let's not try to act like we're taking down Penn Station here.



http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/...el-on-park-ave

PRESERVATIONISTS FIGHT TO SAVE MID-CENTURY MARVEL IN MIDTOWN

By Michael Scotto
March 6, 2018

.....Supporters say demolishing this building is not just important to JP Morgan Chase but also to the de Blasio administration's efforts to modernize this business district.

Chase says the current building is too small for its workforce. The man who helped to write the rezoning plan says if Chase were to build elsewhere in the city it would be a blow to Midtown.

"JP Morgan's decision on where it would locate was perhaps the most important decision that would determine the future of East Midtown, and this is now a very positive development," said Carl Weisbrod, former NYC Planning Commission Chairman.

But preservationists say the de Blasio administration needs to think more about saving the city's history.

"I think preservation is not a priority of this administration," said Tara Kelly of the Municipal Arts Society.

They warn that if Chase does not change its mind, they will look at legal options to save the building.

[JSsocal]

Originally Posted by NYguy

There are enough landmarks in the district.

There's more to add. The Lincoln Building for example.

[JMKeynes]

Originally Posted by NYguy

There are enough landmarks in the district. The issue has been visited, and revisited. That isn't the issue here anyway. The issue is whether the city was going to allow the district to fade as a top business district, and the answer was no (and why would it?). Chase, formerly one of the business intent on leaving, has decided to stay, largely due to the city's own rezoning. That, along with the rezoning of the Hudson Yards, has shown that the city can have a hand in its own fate. Let's not try to act like we're taking down Penn Station here.



http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/...el-on-park-ave

PRESERVATIONISTS FIGHT TO SAVE MID-CENTURY MARVEL IN MIDTOWN

By Michael Scotto
March 6, 2018

I'd like to know where all of these morons were over the past ten years when scores of gorgeous, old buildings were razed.

[Amanita]

^I would not be surprised if some of those "Morons" tried to save those too. If we could refrain from childish name calling, that'd be great.

[Busy Bee]

*Cough* Bancroft *Cough*

[sbarn]

Originally Posted by JSsocal

There's more to add. The Lincoln Building for example.

This building should absolutely be landmarked.

[Prezrezc]

Why would it *not* be?

That and the Chanin are perhaps the two most underappreciated/overlooked period towers in the City.

And calling an obsolescent utilitarian crackerbox a "marvel" is like calling the Waldorf-Astoria a commie block.

[NYguy]

I've thought about what parts of this building could or should be saved, but I honestly couldn't think of any. But the point is, it's coming down, so the preservationists should put their efforts into deciding which pieces they want to save for posterity, and work on that.


https://therealdeal.com/2018/03/08/t...ill-disappear/

The world’s largest voluntary demolition will be done in pieces. Here’s how 270 Park will disappear

By Kathryn Brenzel
March 08, 2018

From the outside, the demolition of 270 Park Avenue will look like a painfully tame round of Jenga. Inside, crews will meticulously tear apart 60 years worth of history.

Chapter 33 of the city’s building code is a demolition contractor’s “bible,” said Luis Valderruten, a structural engineer with Breeze Demolition. The law spells out how to take apart a building piece-by-piece and the various precautions required along the way.

First, the city’s building code requires owners to remove or contain harmful substances before demolition begins. Once that’s done, the building will be completely enclosed with netting to contain the site (scaffolding is also often used, but due to the Park Avenue tower’s height, a cocoon system is a more likely choice here).

All windows will be removed, along with fixtures, skylights and doors. From there, floors are disassembled from the top down. Mini-excavators, along with handheld tools, are used to break up the concrete slabs. Contractors have also employed demolition robots to take on this role (AECOM Tishman did it at 30 Hudson Yards) but the technology remains a rare feature of jobs in the city. Acetylene torches are used to cut apart steel beams and framing, and structural columns — which are the last to be removed — will be broken into smaller pieces.

Stock said it takes about a week to take apart each floor, though contractors will probably aim to work at a faster pace. So, for the Park Avenue tower, it’ll likely take roughly a year for the building to disappear.

[Busy Bee]

From there, floors are disassembled from the top down.

I'm so glad they cleared that up

[Amanita]

Ugh, I felt ill reading that. Poor 270 Park

[NYguy]

I wonder if there will be a cam to watch the development take shape. But more importantly, I want to know when the review process kicks off so we can get some details.

[dc_denizen]

never liked the chase tower, but man..

[NYguy]

http://www.manhattanexpressnews.nyc/...town-rezoning/

JPMorgan Chase’s Big Plans on Park Ave. Create First Skirmish Under East Midtown Rezoning





Added by paul on March 8, 2018

.....right out of the box, the first major redevelopment project announced under the rezoning — JPMorgan Chase’s construction of a 2.5 million square-foot world headquarters at the site of its 52-story building at 270 Park Ave., between E. 47th and 48th Sts. — is drawing fire from preservation advocates as well as architectural critics.

In a Feb. 21 letter to the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, voiced alarm at JPMorgan Chase’s announcement, noting, “The building was designed by Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie de Blois of Skidmore Owings and Merrill [SOM] and is recognized as a very significant example of midcentury corporate Modernism as practiced by the masters of the form. It is especially remarkable as an acknowledged work by a female architect in the male-dominated field of architectural design. This is one of the buildings which defined New York City as the capital of the 20th Century, strongly situated in the corridors of post-war power.”

For all the building’s merits as architecture worthy of preservation, however, advocates for saving 270 Park face a steep political hurdle — unanimous support among local and state officials for JPMorgan Chase’s plan.

“This is our plan for East Midtown in action,” Mayor Bill de Blasio stated in the company’s Feb. 21 press release. “Good jobs, modern buildings, and concrete improvements that will make East Midtown stronger for the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who work here. We look forward to working with JPMorgan Chase as it doubles-down on New York as its international home.”

In the same release, Governor Andrew Cuomo said, “JPMorgan Chase’s commitment to build their new, state-of-the-art corporate headquarters and support thousands of jobs here in New York is proof that our economic development strategies are successful, and I look forward to working with them to keep New York State’s momentum moving forward.”

The appeal by the Historic Districts Council and other preservationists — including the New York Landmarks Conservancy and Docomomo US — represents a huge political ask of the LPC, which though an independent agency is ultimately under mayoral control. Bankoff acknowledged as much. “The LPC is a mayoral agency,” he said. “This is a very tough thing. It’s very hard for an agency to go against their boss.”

In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the LPC told the newspaper, regarding 270 Park, “Further consideration of this building as a landmark is not among the Commission’s priorities at this time. As part of the interagency East Midtown rezoning initiative, the Commission evaluated buildings in the area, including this one. As a result, we prioritized and designated 12 iconic buildings that represented the key periods of development in the area as individual landmarks, but the JPMorgan Chase building was not among them.

.....Notably, the LPC’s 1995 designation report on the Pepsi-Cola Building, at 500 Park Ave. at E. 59th St., notes the leading role played by SOM architect Natalie de Blois, who also worked on Lever House, at 390 Park at E. 54th St.

[Skyguy_7]

Why go through all this trouble when Chase could easily be the anchor tenant at a trophy tower at Hudson yards, WTC, 1 Vanderbilt, etc. Is it THAT prime of a location?