Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower

Architecture

The tower was a later addition to the original 11-story, full-block Metropolitan Life Home Office building (the "East Wing"), which was completed in 1893 and was also designed by Napoleon LeBrun & Sons. Plans for the tower were first announced in 1905. In 1953-57, the original Home Office building was replaced with the current building, designed by D. Everett Waid. Then, between 1960 and 1964, the Tower itself was modernized by Lloyd Morgan and Eugene V. Meroni.

There are four clock faces, one on each side of the tower, located from the 25th to 27th floors. Each clock face is 26.5 feet (8 m) in diameter with each number being four feet (1.2 m) tall. The minute hands each weigh half a ton. The original tower was sheathed in Tuckahoe marble, but during the 1964 renovation plain limestone was used to cover the tower and the East Wing, replacing the old Renaissance revival details with a streamlined, modern look. Much of the building's original ornamentation was removed.

At its southeastern corner, it includes an entrance to the 23rd Street New York City Subway station serving the 4 6 <6> trains.

History

In 1905, Metropolitan Life bought a lot at the southeastern corner of Madison Avenue and 24th Street, on which it intended to build a 560-foot (170 m) building. Finished in 1909, the building served as world headquarters of the company until 2005. It was the world's tallest building until 1913, when it was surpassed by the Woolworth Building.

In the early 1950s, Metropolitan Life started to renovate its entire headquarters, as well as demolish auxiliary structures in lieu of a new limestone, art moderne building. The tower, the sole remaining structure from the early 20th century, was extensively renovated from 1960–1964, and most of the ornaments on the tower's facade were removed or rebuilt during that time, including the clock and the pyramid-shaped roof. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978, and a New York City landmark in 1989.

A three-year exterior restoration project, which saw much of the building covered in scaffolding, ended in 2002 and added a new, computerized, multicolored nighttime lighting system, much like that of the Empire State Building; the colors change to denote particular holidays or important events. The gilded cupola at the very top of the building serves as an "eternal light" which stays illuminated even after the rest of the lighting system has been turned off for the night. The building figured prominently in the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's advertising for many years, illustrated with a light beaming from the top of its spire and the slogan, "The Light That Never Fails".

In March 2005, SL Green Realty Corp. bought the tower, intending to convert it to apartments. In May 2007, the tower and adjacent air rights were subsequently sold for $200 million to Africa Israel Investments. In 2011, Tommy Hilfiger and a partner signed a contract to buy the building for $170 million, planning to transform it into Hilfiger's first hotel, with luxury condos. However Hilfiger backed off the project in September 2011. Africa Israel then sold the tower to Marriott International in October 2011 for $165 million. Marriott announced in January 2012 that they are converting the tower to the New York Edition Hotel. "Edition" is Marriott's boutique hotel line, run in association with Ian Schrager. The three Edition hotels, in London, Miami and New York, were sold by Marriott in January 2013 for $815 Million to the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. The New York property was conveyed to its new owner on its completion. Marriott continues to manage the hotels under long-term contract. The hotel opened in September 2015.

Metropolitan Life North Building

By the late 1920s, the 1909 Met Life Tower and the 1919 North Annex were becoming too small to house the continuously growing activities of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Looking to expand, the company considered building on a full block site between East 24th and East 25th Streets.

Ecole des Beaux Arts-educated architect Harvey Wiley Corbett left his position on the Rockefeller Center design team in order to take up this project in 1928 and was joined by prominent architect Dan Everett Waid. The final design for the new building was proposed as a 100-story tower that would thin out as it rose. However, the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 caused the company to scrap plans for a giant skyscraper and instead built only a portion of the proposed tower. The North Building, completed in 1950, currently has a 32-story base for the proposed 100-story tower, built with the structural strength and the number of elevator shafts needed for a later completion.

Currently, the primary tenant of the Metropolitan Life North Building today is the investment banking arm of Credit Suisse.

The Metropolitan Life Home Office Complex was added to the National Register on January 19, 1996.

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