I was glad to finally read Paul Goldberger’s take on Foster + Partners’ JPMorgan Chase headquarters at 270 Park Avenue—a review that he had been promising for months on Instagram. In the piece, Goldberger notes a key symbolic deception in the supertall’s lobby design: transparent and airy, connecting through the block with plazas and art, and completely NOT public. Will an AI William Whyte ever tell those of us without biometric clearance how it lives? On this topic of symbolism, I was puzzled by how Goldberger situated the new headquarters within a tradition of patrician bank architecture whose objective is to “suggest power, history, and, most of all, stability.” Not that the genealogy isn’t credible; he just doesn’t take it far enough. The ocular experience of our city departs from his tasteful history fit for a Rizzoli monograph: New York is awash with grand old banks that are now Duane Reades, Trader Joe’s, empty event spaces, condos, or lobbies for condos. Banks run the numbers and dump their architecture. I can appreciate solid neoclassical buildings as Rossian “urban artifacts” that can change programs without breaking a sweat, but let’s call the bluff on this bankrupt symbolism. Stable as what? Certainly not as a bank. In April 2025, I attended a talk in 270 Park’s site office, delivered by the project manager for JPMorgan’s $3 billion–plus inhabitable investment. No employees had even moved in yet, but the company had already run the numbers: The PM was confident that they’ll be able to sell 270 Park at a profit.
—Casey Mack, Brooklyn