Designed in the International Style by Emery Roth & Sons, the building was opened in 1967.

299 Park is a black skyscraper with alternating shiny and matte thin stainless steel mullions emphasizing its height.

[4] The building was originally constructed over the primary rail tracks for the New York Central Railroad's Park Avenue main line, which made the building's construction and engineering highly complicated.

In 1980 and then again in 1981, the building suffered damage from large fires—the 1980 fire caused injuries to 125 firefighters.

[6] Since its construction, 299 Park has majority owned and controlled by Fisher Brothers, a real estate investment group, that developed the site in the 1960s.