[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.