By E. James Smith
Whether viewed from Brooklyn Heights, New Jersey or the evening news, one can’ t help but notice the most recent addition to the New York City skyline. The new JPMorgan Chase Tower at 270 Park Avenue, which opened in October 2025, is New York’ s newest skyscraper, but it certainly is not the first to bear the name of a prominent financial institution.
Academic and economic theories often cite the construction of tall, imposing buildings by financial institutions and large corporations as an economic bellwether. The idea is that large buildings are constructed during times of prosperity and followed by a sustained financial downturn when nothing substantial is built. Andrew Lawrence presented this concept in his 1999 property research paper,“ The Skyscraper Index: The Faulty Towers.” Mark Thornton’ s 2018 book, The Skyscraper Curse, further developed the idea by linking Lawrence’ s Skyscraper Index to the Austrian business cycle theory, which claims to have predicted every major economic crisis in the past 100 years.
Carol Willis, author of Form Follows Function and the founder, director and curator of New York’ s Skyscraper Museum, points out that despite these theories, most commercial buildings are built as investments intended to be leased with income generation as their primary purpose. When an economic downturn occurs, it is no longer viable to create new office spaces that won’ t be rented.
It is generally the exception and not the rule that a corporation constructs a building for the sole purpose of its own use, without generating income by leasing a percentage of its floors. According to an article by Katie Burke in the real estate media outlet CoStar News, JPMorgan Chase has already exceeded the space in the tower. It is renovating a neighboring tower and renting space in another to accommodate its New York-based, five-day a week workforce. Therefore, it is unlikely there will be space for lease at 270 Park.
Artist’ s rendering of the JPMorgan Chase Tower at 270 Park Avenue during construction. The building opened in October 2025 and is New York’ s newest skyscraper.
Façade of the Second Branch Bank of the United States, built in 1822, on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Artistry of 270 Park Avenue
270 Park Avenue showcases many cuttingedge features that set new standards for what a modern workspace should look like in a 21st century, post-COVID office tower. 10,000 employees will enter the building daily through four grand entrances from the spacious, wrap-around plaza lying below the tower. According to lead architect Lord Norman Foster, founder and executive chairman of Foster + Partners,“ The unique cantilevered structure, clad in bronze, delivers two and a half times the amount of public space at the base, including a garden, than its predecessor.”
The new building incorporates five commissioned artworks, including A Parallel Nature, visible to pedestrians on Madison Avenue, by Maya Lin, who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Celestial Passage by Leo Villareal, not visible at street-level, can be most appreciated when seen from afar, as it is a 360-degree light display covering the more than 1,300-foot
Elisa Rolle www. MoAF. org | Winter 2026 | FINANCIAL HISTORY 33