21st Century Towers — Foster + Partners

New Yorkers today are eyewitnesses to the third phase of Park Avenue’s historic evolution as a value corridor and luxury brand. Almost vanished are the first era of buildings of the original “Terminal City” erected on the New York Central’s “air rights” zone above the railyard. The second growth of modern office buildings of the postwar decades are now beginning to yield to new ambitions and market forces. The Department of City Planning’s 2017 rezoning of East Midtown has also made possible a new scale of construction.

One architectural firm—Foster + Partners—has so far dominated the new activity on the avenue and skyline. The striking tower of 425 Park Avenue for L&L Holding Company, first proposed in 2012 and completed in 2021 – the first new full-block building in the district in more than 50 years—preceded the passage of the new zoning and represented an ingenious response to design and construction under the old law. In 2025, Foster + Partners completed the new global headquarters of JPMorgan Chase at 270 Park, which represents the third, “climax species” of skyscrapers on the site first occupied by the 1917 Margery Apartments, then the 1960 Union Carbide Building. On the drawing boards is the tallest of the firm’s three Park Avenue projects: the design for a new headquarters for Citadel at 350 Park.

Jeremy Dworken, a partner at Foster + Partners will discuss the firm’s work in the district. Jeremy joined Foster + Partners in 2010 and became a partner in 2018. He now co-directs the New York office.