Formerly the Gulf Building, the 37-story Art Deco JPMorgan Chase Building in front of you was Houston's tallest from 1929 until 1963. Completed in 1929, it stood as Houston's tallest building until 1963, when the Exxon Building surpassed it. It serves today as the Houston headquarters of JPMorgan Chase Bank and was once the headquarters of Texas Commerce Bank.
Imagine the site before the tower existed: Jesse H. Jones had commissioned Gulf's first Houston building in 1916 — a ten-story block later renamed the Rusk Building after the oil company left. In 1927 Jones began developing this new Art Deco tower for Gulf at the northwest corner of Rusk Avenue and Main Street, on land that had been the Charlotte Baldwin Allen homestead. Jones, who usually hired Alfred C. Finn, brought in Kenneth Franzheim and J. E. R. Carpenter to collaborate.
They sketched several proposals, finally choosing a design inspired by Eliel Saarinen. Notice that this tower rose in 1927 on what had been the Charlotte Baldwin Allen homestead, at the corner of Rusk Avenue and Main Street, its final design inspired by Eliel Saarinen.