425 Park Avenue
East Midtown | built 1957
Open on the map11 entries
The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1957
A Kahn & Jacobs tower replaces the Goelet family's row houses
The site of 425 Park Avenue held sixteen four-story townhouses built by Robert Goelet in 1871. Construction of a Kahn & Jacobs office tower on the Goelet estate's land began in 1954, and the 32-story Modernist building opened in 1957. At the time it was one of the tallest buildings to use bolted connections.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2006
L&L Holding buys the long ground lease under 425 Park Avenue
L&L Holding, the firm Levinson and Lapidus founded in 2000, quietly acquires an 84-year ground lease on the block from the Goelet family. The lease does not begin until 2015, when the existing lease and the leases of the building's two office tenants, Citibank and Kaye Scholer, run out. The aging tower is still being repaired after a serious electrical fire two years earlier, and the new landlord says the market will decide what rises on the site.
Source: nypost.com
- 2013
L&L and GreenOak take over Lehman Brothers' stake in the redevelopment
Lehman Brothers had partnered with L&L in the 2006 ground-lease deal, and its 2008 bankruptcy put the redevelopment of 425 Park Avenue in doubt. L&L offered to buy Lehman out at a steep discount, but Lehman chose to keep funding the project. L&L, together with GreenOak Real Estate and further investors, purchased 90 percent of Lehman's stake in 2013, giving L&L full control of the plan.
“…in 2013, L&L, GreenOak Real Estate, and other investors bought 90% of Lehman Brothers' stake in the project, allowing L&L to have full control…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2015
Eleven Madison Park's owners announce a Park Avenue restaurant at the groundbreaking
At the groundbreaking for the new tower at 425 Park Avenue, developers reveal that Daniel Humm and Will Guidara, the partners behind Eleven Madison Park and the NoMad, have agreed to run a restaurant in the building. The announcement comes well before construction can finish, and the restaurant is expected to debut within two or three years.
Source: ny.eater.com
- 2016
Citadel signs what is believed to be New York's most expensive office lease
Citadel signs a lease for about 200,000 square feet at the planned tower, which Bisnow says is believed to be the priciest office lease in the city's history. Citing Crain's, it puts the penthouse level at about $300 a square foot and the whole deal at an average near $175. The broker for L&L says the tenant's caliber validates the developer's bet on a building aimed at the top of the market.
Source: bisnow.com
- 2018
Crews strip the old tower to a quarter of its frame while keeping it standing
To keep the old building's 670,000 square feet, L&L must retain 25 percent of the 1950s structure, so Waldorf Demolition takes down floors 33 through 18 and then peels away the rear section. More than 740 tons of temporary steel braces hold the rest up. Before demolition began, the landlord donated furniture to local firehouses, and vibration monitors in nearby buildings and the Amtrak tunnels below registered no large readings.
Source: commercialobserver.com
- 2018
The redeveloped 425 Park Avenue tops out with Norman Foster in attendance
The tower reached half its final height in April 2018 and began receiving its facade that June. On December 4, 2018, a topping-out ceremony marks the top of the structure, attended by lead architect Lord Norman Foster. Three roughly 200-foot concrete fins and column-free floors with very high ceilings define the Foster + Partners design, which sits on top of the retained lower floors of the old tower.
“The building topped out on December 4, 2018, in a ceremony attended by lead architect Lord Norman Foster.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2019
Citadel expands to nearly half of 425 Park Avenue
Hedge fund Citadel signs a 200,000-square-foot lease at the new 425 Park Avenue in early 2016, then the most expensive lease in the city's history. In January 2019 it adds 124,000 square feet, bringing its total to 335,400 square feet, or about 48 percent of the building.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2022
Daniel Humm's planned restaurant at 425 Park falls through over his vegan turn
Daniel Humm's long-planned two-story restaurant at 425 Park Avenue collapses when the developer will not back his shift to a fully vegan menu. Eater, citing the New York Post, reports that the 14,000-square-foot space will likely go to Jean-Georges Vongerichten instead. Humm had also lost a London restaurant at Claridge's, which closed after the hotel refused to let it go vegan.
Source: ny.eater.com
- 2022
Foster + Partners completes its 860-foot redevelopment of 425 Park Avenue
Foster + Partners' redevelopment of 425 Park Avenue is completed in October 2022 after construction began in 2016, at a cost of about $1 billion. The 860-foot tower keeps part of the 1957 building's structure and is marked by three concrete fins about 200 feet tall.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2023
Jean-Georges Vongerichten opens Four Twenty Five at the base of the tower
Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten opens the restaurant Four Twenty Five at 425 Park Avenue in December 2023. It replaces plans for a restaurant by Daniel Humm, which were cancelled in 2022.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- 425 Park AvenueWikipedia
Nearby
- William and Helen Ziegler House116 East 55th Street | 3 entries
- Lombardy Hotel109 East 56th Street | 3 entries
- Central Synagogue652 Lexington Avenue | 13 entries
- The Brook Club111 East 54th Street | 9 entries
- Park Avenue Tower65 East 55th Street | 7 entries
- Allerton Hotel for Women690 Lexington Avenue | 3 entries