MetLife Building

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Information
MetLife Building

Location	New York, New York USA
Status	Complete
Constructed	1963
Use	Office
Height
Antenna/Spire	n/a
Roof	246.6 m
Top floor	60
Technical details
Floor count	58
Floor area	3.14 million sq ft
Elevator count	23
Companies
Architect	Emery Roth & Sons

Not to be confused with MetLife Tower.

The MetLife Building, originally called the Pan Am Building, is a skyscraper located at 200 Park Avenue in New York City.

1 History
2 Architecture
3 Statistics
4 Tenants
5 Pop cultural references
6 References
7 See also
8 External links

[edit] History

The Pan Am Building was the largest commercial office building in the world when it opened on March 7, 1963.^[1] It is an important part of the Manhattan skyline and one of the fifty tallest buildings in the United States.

Pan American World Airways was the building's owner for many years. Its logotype was depicted on a sign that was placed on the north and south faces and its globe logo was depicted on a sign that was placed on the east and west faces. In 1981, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company purchased the building from Pan Am. When Pan Am ceased operations in 1991, MetLife replaced the Pan Am logos on the north and south faces with its own, renaming the building the MetLife Building.^[2] This name is also informally held by the MetLife Tower.

In 2005, MetLife sold the building for $1.72 billion, the highest recorded price for an office building in the United States at the time. The buyer was a joint venture of Tishman Speyer Properties, the New York City Employees' Retirement System, and the New York City Teachers' Retirement System.

The building was also known for its helicopter service to John F. Kennedy International Airport, a seven-minute flight that left from the rooftop helipad. This service was offered only between December 21, 1965 and February 18, 1968 by New York Airways and for a few months in 1977 and was ended after a spectacular accident that killed five people.^[3]^[4] On May 16, 1977, a broken landing gear caused a parked Sikorsky S-61L with rotors still turning to tip over, killing four people who were outside the helicopter waiting to board, including exploitation filmmaker Michael Findlay. Part of a rotor blade sailed over the side of the building and killed a pedestrian on the corner of Madison and 43rd Street. Two other people were seriously injured.

Another notorious moment in the building's history was the historic suicide of Eli M. Black (the father of Leon Black) on February 3, 1975. The CEO of United Brands Company (now Chiquita Brands International) used his briefcase to shatter an external window and then jumped out of the forty-four story window to his death on Park Avenue.

The building's most famous "residents" are a pair of Peregrine Falcons nicknamed Lois and Clark who nest there and dine on the pigeons.

[edit] Architecture

Building profile, looking east up 44th Street.

Designed by Emery Roth & Sons with the assistance of Walter Gropius and Pietro Belluschi, the Pan Am Building is an example of a Brutalist or International style skyscraper. It is purely commercial in design with large floors, simple massing, and an absence of luxurious detailing inside or out. Although disliked by architecture critics and many New Yorkers, it has been popular with tenants, not least because of its location next to Grand Central Terminal.

The MetLife Building is arguably the most hated skyscraper in the city. In 1987, the lifestyle periodical New York revealed in a poll that MetLife—then Pan Am—was the building that New Yorkers would most like to see demolished. Perhaps contributing to the hatred of the building is the fact that it is so visible. Situated behind Grand Central Terminal outside of the grid, the building, which would have otherwise been tucked away into the city, is left totally exposed and contrasted with the other buildings around it, most notably the New York Central Building, which is now called the Helmsley Building. Today the building is one of the most recognizable skyscrapers in the City.

While condemned by some, many of the most influential architects of the twentieth century have commended the MetLife Building since its completion. With a shape similar to that of Pirelli Tower in Milan, MetLife is subtle while unique in its lozenge shape, in effect referencing its monumental position. Set apart from many of its contemporaries, MetLife has a heavy pre-cast facade that might have appealed to those looking for a historicist design. The importance of this design and the stress placed on its subtleties may be clearer after a close look at both Gropius's other tall building projects, such as the Chicago Tribune Tower competition.

[edit] Statistics

MetLife Building as seen from the Empire State Building, 2005

Height: 808 ft (246.6 m)
Floors: 60 (above ground)
Floor space: 3.14 million ft² (307,000 m²)

[edit] Tenants

In addition to being the official headquarters of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, the MetLife Building houses a number of other major firms, including the headquarters of Dreyfus Corporation, the largest office of Greenberg Traurig, and the New York offices of Barclays Capital, CB Richard Ellis, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Hunton & Williams, and Winston & Strawn.

[edit] Pop cultural references

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As a prominent New York landmark, the Metlife Building has been featured in numerous movies, including Coogan's Bluff in which Clint Eastwood's character arrives in city by helicopter, the American version of Godzilla as its middle body is destroyed, after Godzilla storms Grand Central Terminal, in the main titles of the HBO presentation of Angels in America, at the end of Antz, and is shown in and is an important part of Catch Me if You Can in which the main character poses as a Pan Am Pilot.

The children's fantasy book So You Want to Be a Wizard prominently features the Pan Am building in a setpiece where the protagonists step off its roof onto an invisible bridge.

Yves Montand sang the song "Come Back to Me" on top of the Pan Am Building in the 1970 Barbra Streisand musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.

The movie Hackers also features the building, and in a continuity error arising out of the use of stock footage, features the Pan Am logo in the helicopter shots and the MetLife logo in the ground shots.

The 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die features the PanAm Building in the opening shot following the gun barrel logo as the camera zooms into the United Nations Headquarters where a British agent ambassador is assassinated during a General Assembly simulation.

Several video games also feature the MetLife Building, such as Freedom Fighters. In Grand Theft Auto IV, it is called the "GetaLife Building."

In the 2005 movie Rent a quick shot shows the building with its current MetLife sign (MetLife's pre-1998 logo), but since the movie takes place during a 365 day period between 1989 and 1990 this is an error: it should have read Pan Am. In the 2006 movie Superman Returns it can be seen in several of the shots showing the Metropolis skyline.

Joni Mitchell has the memorable line "A helicopter lands on the Pan-Am roof like a dragonfly on a tomb" in her song "Harry's House" on the The Hissing of Summer Lawns album.

In Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer it can be seen when Human Torch sees Silver Surfer break the windows in the Chrysler Building.

[edit] References

^ Horsley, Carter C. The MetLife Building, The Midtown Book. Accessed September 30, 2007. "When it was completed, the 2.4-million sq. ft. building became the world's largest office building in bulk, a title it would lose a few years later to 55 Water Street downtown."
^ Schneider, Daniel B. "F.Y.I.", The New York Times, January 5, 1997. Accessed September 30, 2007. "Q. I recall that it was 1963 when the huge Pan Am letters were put atop what is now the Met Life building and that it was 1992 when they were taken down.... A. Most of the letters and the accompanying logos did not survive removal; exceptions are in warehouses.... The letters, each about 15 feet tall, and the logos -- 25-foot-wide globes -- had to be cut into sections and pulled up onto the roof by technicians from Universal Unlimited, who built and installed their replacements, the Met Life signs."
^ Schneider, Daniel B. "F.Y.I.", July 25, 1999. Accessed September 30, 2007. "Q. Back in the 1960's and 70's, helicopters bound for Kennedy International Airport used to take off from a deck atop the old Pan Am Building. Why was the service halted? A. As many as 360 helicopter flights a day were planned by New York Airways after the 59-story Pan Am building was completed in 1963, but a bitter public outcry delayed the first few flights until Dec. 21, 1965.... The operation proved unprofitable, however, since the helicopters carried an average of only eight passengers, and the heliport, which had cost $1 million to build, closed in 1968.... After another round of hearings -- and renewed protests -- flights resumed in February 1977. Three months later, the landing gear on one of the Sikorsky S-61 helicopters collapsed while passengers were boarding, flipping it on its side and sending a 20-foot rotor blade skidding across the roof and over the west parapet wall.... Within hours, the heliport was closed indefinitely."
^ Hudson, Edward. "Helicopter Service From Roof Of Pan Am Building Suspended; PAN AM SUSPENDS COPTER SERVICES", The New York Times, February 19, 1968. Accessed September 30, 2007. "Helicopter operations from the 59-story roof of the Pan Am Building were suspended last night as a result of a dispute over the future financial support of the operation by Pan American World Airways."