IBM Building
590 Madison Avenue | also 580 Madison Avenue, 12 East 57th Street | Midtown | built 1981
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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.
- 1938
IBM opens its headquarters in an earlier 20-story building on this corner
IBM bought a 20-story building at the southwest corner of Madison Avenue and 57th Street in 1936, and its headquarters opened there two years later. The company stayed until 1964, when it moved its administrative officials to Armonk, a suburb to the north, after a successful experiment with a suburban office. It kept offices at 590 Madison, and the present tower later rose on the site.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1969
IBM hires I. M. Pei to sketch a tower for the site, then turns the plans down
IBM had engaged the architect I. M. Pei by 1969 to prepare early plans for a tower to replace its old Madison Avenue headquarters, but the company turned them down for reasons the record does not give. It went on assembling neighboring buildings, completing its purchases of adjacent plots in 1973, before turning to Edward Larrabee Barnes.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1978
Edward Larrabee Barnes's pentagonal granite tower for IBM moves toward construction
Architect Edward Larrabee Barnes planned a five-sided tower for IBM on Madison Avenue. His team toured quarries in several countries before picking mottled gray-green granite from Quebec. By July 1978 the site was cleared and the tower had grown to 43 floors, counting the base. Turner Construction was hired, and the architect of the neighboring AT&T Building said its pink facade was chosen to complement IBM's gray-green one.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1982
Michael Heizer's Levitated Mass, a boulder floating over water, is dedicated at the corner
At the corner of Madison Avenue and 56th Street is Levitated Mass, a steel-and-granite fountain by Michael Heizer dedicated in 1982. An 11-ton boulder sits in a 25-by-16-foot frame and appears to float above flowing water, with a ledge around the edge for seating. To make it, Heizer cut the top off a big rock and carved grooves into its surface, then mounted it on supports concealed in a stainless steel structure.
“The boulder appears to float over running water.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1983
The IBM Building is dedicated, opening a public gallery and a bamboo atrium
IBM dedicated its new headquarters on October 4, 1983. The company owned the building and filled it. At the base were a public gallery, whose first exhibition showed five decades of IBM computing devices, and a tree-filled atrium. The planting was rotated every six months because the bamboo died within half a year. Jerold Kayden later called it the city's outstanding privately owned public space.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1984
Critics split over the new IBM tower, with Architectural Record ranking it beside the Seagram
Reviews were mixed. Paul Goldberger wrote in 1983 that the building fell short of expectations, especially its atrium, entrance and facade. In 1984 Architectural Record said it and the Seagram Building might be the two best Modern Movement skyscrapers yet built, and the state architects' association gave it an award of excellence. Brendan Gill complained that it damaged the scale of its surroundings.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1993
IBM announces it will close its Gallery of Science and Art
In March 1993 IBM decided to shut its Gallery of Science and Art, a space on the lower level of the atrium, as a cost-saving move, though it drew between 500,000 and 750,000 visitors a year. The company was shrinking its real estate, and by then it was subleasing much of the tower. Part of the former gallery space later went to the Freedom Forum and, from 1996, the watch retailer Tourneau.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1995
Robert A. M. Stern redesigns the atrium after the building's sale
IBM sold the tower in May 1994 for an estimated $200 million to a partnership of Edward J. Minskoff and Odyssey Partners, leasing back a third of it. The new owners proposed changes to a dingy atrium where homeless people gathered. After critics objected to losing public space, the planning commission approved a modified plan in October 1995. Robert A. M. Stern's renovation was completed that December.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2018
Ohio's teachers' pension fund puts the IBM Building up for sale
In August 2018 the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio, which had bought out the remaining stake in the tower three years earlier, began seeking a buyer for 590 Madison, a deal that could bring in as much as $1.3 billion. IBM was still the largest tenant, with about 120,000 of the building's 1.1 million square feet. The private equity firm Crestview Advisors had just taken the entire 42nd floor.
Source: therealdeal.com
- 2022
IBM signs for One Madison Avenue, planning to leave 590 Madison
In March 2022 IBM agreed to a 16-year lease on 328,000 square feet at SL Green's One Madison Avenue, which was not yet finished, and planned to consolidate employees from 10 other city offices there. The New York Post reported that among the addresses it would leave were 590 Madison Avenue and 51 Astor Place. IBM's new space was to be smaller than the space it was giving up.
Source: therealdeal.com
- 2024
LVMH takes office floors at 590 Madison as swing space
In September 2024 the luxury group LVMH signed a lease at 590 Madison Avenue, reported as 150,000 square feet over four floors, though a spokesperson for the building's owner, the Ohio teachers' pension fund, confirmed about 100,000 square feet. LVMH planned to use the space as swing space during the redevelopment of its two buildings, 1 East 57th Street and 19 East 58th Street.
Source: commercialobserver.com
- 2025
RXR Realty completes a $1.1 billion purchase of 590 Madison Avenue
The Ohio teachers' pension fund that owned the building put it up for sale in February 2025 with an asking price of $1.1 billion. RXR Realty won the bidding in May, with Elliott Investment Management as its equity partner, and the purchase closed in August. It was the costliest sale of a New York office building in seven years, and Apollo Global Management lent $785 million.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- 590 Madison AvenueWikipedia
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