The Union Carbide Building, or 270 Park Avenue, was completed in 1960 and is credited to the office of Skidmore Owings & Merrill with Natalie de Blois, FAIA, as its senior designer. Gordon Bunshaft, SOM NY Partner-in-Charge of Design, approved her designs and the work of the rest of the project’s design team. The building, which now functions as JP Morgan Chase headquarters, employs the curtain-walled corporate high-rise style for which SOM was famous. The exterior design includes a plaza on Park Avenue; a 13-story wing that extends to Madison Avenue, matching the neighboring buildings in height; vertical mullions running the 52-story height of the tower, providing a pin-stripe effect; and SOM’s mid-century signature, the curtain wall façade. Inside, the building is supported by isolated structural columns which allow an open office plan. De Blois’s task also required finding solutions to the design issues incurred by planning a 700 foot building to be erected over pre-existing train tracks.

Never landmarked, the building was the first victim of New Yorks East Midtown Rezoning as JP Morgan scooped up all the newly available air rights from St Barts and St Patricks and tore the building down.  They are in the process of replacing it with an even taller building by Foster + Partners which will clock in at nearly 1400 feet tall and will consolidate all Chase's employees under one roof.