Newport Tower (Jersey City) World Financial Center in Manhattan. The Newport Tower is a modern-style building. It is similar in appearance to the world-famous Willis Tower, (formerly known as "Sears Tower") in Chicago, Illinois. The tower received a facelift in the summer of 2005; wooden panels have been installed on the lobby walls, and LCD advertisement screens added to the elevators. The colonnade in front of the building has been removed in July 2008. A new elevator management system, Schindler ID, was installed in the building in September 2009. On October 19, 2011, Multi-Employer Property Trust purchased the Newport Tower from Brookfield Properties for
Joshua Sears Building works on what is now Peter Kirk Park. The building originally intended to house a bank at the corner. Sears outfitted the entire interior and even hired a partial staff but with the arrival of the Panic of 1893, the doors, like the steel mill, never opened. In the years after the bust, the building, like many others in the area remained mostly vacant, though it, along with a large portion of the original townsite remained in the ownership of the Sears estate. The corner space was eventually occupied by a printing company and later a grocery store. An electric