New York’s Skyline Has a Bold New Look
New York City’s skyline has changed once again. In October, JPMorgan Chase opened the city’s latest supertall skyscraper at 270 Park Avenue, which joined a handful of buildings looming above 300 meters (984 feet). The new construction stands out, even among its lofty peers: The top of the 1,388-foot building is cloaked in LED lights, visible from across the boroughs like a gargantuan lighthouse.
“If you’re looking at the New York City skyline, it looks totally out of place,” said Lucas Salgado, who can see 270 Park from his apartment in Long Island City, Queens. “I wouldn’t call it an eyesore. It just looks very different.”
Sometimes the lights are static, but usually they move, introducing motion into a largely still skyline. On July 4, Sept. 11 and Veterans Day, they showed a gently rippling American flag. For a party in November honoring King Charles III (who did not attend), the building displayed the Union Jack. The company says it has not finalized the concepts and schedule for these special “vignettes.”
ImageThe artist Leo Villareal made a display called “Celestial Passage” that the building shows most of the time.Most of the time, the lights show “Celestial Passage,” a display of sparkling geometric patterns that resembles a screen saver seen through a glass of champagne. The artist Leo Villareal, responsible for large-scale pieces like the lights on the Bay Bridge connecting San Francisco and Oakland, programmed the work in collaboration with Tillotson Design Associates, a lighting design consultancy, and Foster + Partners, the architecture firm that designed the building.
Over the last 30 years, LEDs have become more complex, efficient and affordable, making them much easier to use on building exteriors. Light shows play on the sides of the Sphere in Las Vegas, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai. New York had remained a holdout to grand outdoor light shows — until now.
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