"New" office tower to hang from old frame. (320 Park Avenue Building in New York, New York to become headquarters for Mutual of America Life Insurance Co.)

Building Design & Construction, February, 1994

The term "reconstruction" hardly does justice to the scope of work to be performed on New York City's 320 Park Avenue Building.

After sporting a flat top for 33 years, the 34-story office building is being refitted with a 52-ft.-high metal gable. It will also be stripped of its aluminum and glass facade and entirely reclad. All interior systems -- from mechanical and electrical to elevators and plumbing -- will be torn out and replaced. In fact, the entire building is headed for the scrap heap, save for its concrete slabs and structural steel frame. And some 30 percent of those are being reconfigured, according to Richard Hayden, managing principal with project architect Swanke Hayden Connell (SHC) of New York City.

With so little remaining, it...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.