Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower (New York City) - Skyscrapers on Waymarking.com

In 1907, to match status of the most successful US insurance company, the president of the company, John Rogers Hegeman, hired architect Napoleon LeBrun & Sons to design a new opulent seat of the MetLife HQs... Hegeman wanted the building to be the world’s tallest. So, architect LeBrun proposed a magnificent marble office tower, which will be a rival of the other large skyscrapers that had begun springing up in Manhattan just a few years prior.

The tower addition was set atop the northwest portion of the existing building. The fifty-story tower, which stands approximately 213 m tall, can be described as classical in nature, with a standard base, shaft and capital, ending in a pyramidal spire, cupola and lantern. LeBrun, at the request of Hegeman, modeled the tower after the St Mark's Campanile in Venice. There are 4 four-story clocks mounted on the tower, one on each side. They are Italian Renaissance in style, with the time pieces encircled in wreaths and flowers.

In the 1960s, in a move that many architectural experts deemed Metlife Tower copula scandalous, MetLife replaced the marble portions of the tower with limestone. Sadly, much of the original Renaissance ornamentation was removed. In 1999, the building underwent another period of renovation. According to Building Conservation Associates, the cupola was re-gilded with 23.75-carat Italian gold leaf, and the cracked Tuckahoe marble facades were replaced, as were damaged white and turquoise tiles on the clock faces. New and improved lighting systems were installed to make it easier to light the building in holiday colors when appropriate.