New York Life Insurance Building

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This article is about the building in New York. For other buildings of the same name, see New York Life Insurance Building (disambiguation).

The New York Life Insurance Building as taken from the observation deck at the Empire State Building

The New York Life Insurance Building, New York is the headquarters of the New York Life Insurance Company. It was designed in 1926 by Cass Gilbert, designer of the landmark Woolworth Building; the massive building rises forty stories to its pyramidal gilded roof and occupies the full block between 26th and 27th Streets, Madison Avenue and Park Avenue South, a rarity in New York. From 1837–1889, the site was occupied by the Union Depot of the New York and Harlem and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroads, a concert garden, and P.T. Barnum's Hippodrome. Until 1925, the site housed the original Madison Square Garden, designed by architect Stanford White.

The New York Life Insurance Building was completed in 1928 and combines streamlined Gothic details and distinctly Moderne massing. It has been designated an official New York City landmark by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark. The building's exterior is sometimes seen in the ABC television series Ugly Betty as the "headquarters" of fictional Meade Publications.