Pass the Leftovers!

At 270 Park Avenue, the largest controlled building demolition in history is currently underway. Completed in 1960, the former Union Carbide Building’s 52 stories are being taken down one part at a time. This 1.5 million-square-foot structure, now the headquarters of JPMorgan Chase, will be replaced by a new 2.5 million-square-foot super-tall tower for the same multinational bank. It appears to be a case of a big building that is not big enough.

Nevertheless, Union Carbide lived a longer life than most of the world’s 100 tallest buildings to be demolished. At fifty-nine years old, it has been both disparaged as a lesser version of Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building (up the street at 375 Park Avenue) and lauded as one of many Skidmore, Owings & Merrill–designed towers that have contributed to a clustering of mid-century corporate modernism. It is also considered a noteworthy design by SOM’s Natalie de Blois (rather than the more famous Gordon Bunshaft). Regardless of aesthetics and history, it is undeniably significant in terms of its raw material—a massive chu…