" Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower
Architectural style Italian Renaissance Revival
The building is composed of two sections: a 700-foot-tall (210 m) tower at the northwest corner of the block, at Madison Avenue and 24th Street, and a shorter east wing occupying the remainder of the block bounded by Madison Avenue, Park Avenue South, 23rd Street, and 24th Street. The South Building, along with the North Building directly across 24th Street, comprises the Metropolitan Home Office Complex, which originally served as the headquarters of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (now publicly known as MetLife).
The South Building's tower was designed by the architectural firm of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons and erected between 1905 and 1909. Inspired by St Mark's Campanile, the tower features four clock faces, four bells, and lighted beacons at its top, and was the tallest building in the world until 1913. The tower originally included Metropolitan Life's offices, and since 2015, it has contained a 273-room luxury hotel known as the New York Edition Hotel. The tower was designated as a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1989, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. It was also made a National Historic Landmark in 1978.
The east wing was designed by Lloyd Morgan and Eugene Meroni and constructed in two stages between 1953 and 1960. The east wing is also referred to as One Madison Avenue. It replaced another building on the site, which was built in phases from 1893 to 1905, and which was also designed by LeBrun's firm. When the current east wing was built, the 700-foot tower was extensively renovated as well. In 2020, work started on an addition to the east wing, which will be designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox and be completed in 2023 or 2024.
Architecture
The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, or the South Building, is composed of the east wing and the tower. It occupies an entire block between Madison Avenue and Madison Square Park to the west, 24th Street to the north, Park Avenue South to the east, and 23rd Street to the south. The block measures 200 feet (61 m) from north to south and 445 feet (136 m) from east to west.
The first section of the original 11-story, full-block east wing was completed in 1893 and was designed by Napoleon LeBrun & Sons. The tower was a later addition to the original building, constructed between 1905 and 1909. The original home office building was replaced with the current building, designed by Lloyd Morgan and Eugene Meroni, between 1953 and 1957.. The complex is one of the few remaining major insurance company "home offices" in New York City.
Tower
The building's tower is located at the northwest corner of the block, at Madison Avenue and 24th Street, with the address 5 Madison Avenue. The tower rises 700 feet (210 m) to its pinnacle. It has a footprint measuring 75 feet (23 m) north-south along Madison Avenue and 85 feet (26 m) west-east on 24th Street. This gives the tower a height-to-width ratio of 8.25:1. The Metropolitan Life Tower is modeled after St Mark's Campanile in Venice, Italy. The tower is older than its model, since St Mark's Campanile had collapsed in 1902 and was replaced in 1912; it is also more than twice as large as St Mark's Campanile.
Like the facades of many early skyscrapers, the tower's exterior was divided into three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column—namely a base, shaft, and capital—in both its original and renovated forms. These three sections include usable space inside and are collectively 660 feet (200 m) tall. The tower is topped by a 40-foot-tall (12 m) pyramidal roof, which is slightly set back and contains a cupola and lantern. The tower was originally sheathed in Tuckahoe marble, provided by the main contractor, the Hedden Construction Company. During the 1964 renovation, plain limestone was used to cover the tower and the east wing, replacing LeBrun's old Renaissance Revival details with a streamlined, modern look. The tower was designed with oversized exterior details to make it seem smaller than it actually was.
Some 7,500 short tons (6,700 long tons; 6,800 t) of steel were used in the tower's structural frame. The footings of the tower are 60 feet (18 m) deep, supported by twelve columns on the edges and eight columns inside the plot, and anchored to a layer of bedrock between 28 to 46 feet (8.5 to 14.0 m) deep. The main columns at the tower's corners measure 2 by 2 feet (0.61 by 0.61 m). They bear structural loads of up to 10.4 million pounds (4,700,000 kg) when wind pressure was taken into account. The structural steel frame of the tower, and of its former east wing, is encased in reinforced concrete. The marble and brickwork used in the building is anchored to the structural steel frame, while the floors are made of inverted concrete arches. As a consequence of all the marble used in the Met Life Tower, it weighed about 38,000 short tons (34,000 long tons; 34,000 t) when first built, or about twice as much as the Singer Tower."
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