590 Madison Avenue

590 Madison Avenue also known as the IBM Building, is a 603-foot tall skyscraper at the corner of East 57th Street and Madison Avenue in New York City. It was completed in 1983 and has 41 floors. The building cost US$250 million, has 1,007,420 square feet of floor area and 24 elevators, and is the 129th tallest building in New York. Edward Larrabee Barnes & Associates designed the building, and IBM developed it. IBM sold the tower to Odyssey in 1994.

The world headquarters of IBM had been in a previous 20-story building on this site which opened in January 1938. IBM moved its headquarters to Armonk, New York in 1964 but still needed a facility in New York City. In 1973, the construction of a new IBM building to replace the existing one was permitted by New York City. Its plan included square footage exceeding the legal limitation of allowable floor area but it was accepted because of the bonus for providing benefits of public open space. The original building was demolished starting in 1977. The present building was completed in 1983. It contained public open space as part of a 1961 amendment to the 1916 Zoning Resolution, which allowed architects to create buildings with more square footage if they contained public open spaces.

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