The MetLife Building (also 200 Park Avenue and formerly the Pan Am Building) is a skyscraper at Park Avenue and 45th Street, north of Grand Central Terminal, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, U.S. Designed in the International style by Richard Roth, Walter Gropius, and Pietro Belluschi and completed in 1962, the MetLife Building is tall with 59 stories. It was advertised as the world's largest commercial office space by square footage at its opening, with of usable office space. , the MetLife Building remains one of the 100 tallest buildings in the United States.
The MetLife Building contains an elongated octagonal massing with the longer axis perpendicular to Park Avenue. The building sits atop two levels of railroad tracks leading into Grand Central Terminal. The facade is one of the first precast concrete exterior walls in a building in New York City. In the lobby is a pedestrian passage to Grand Central's Main Concourse, a lobby with artwork, and a parking garage at the building's base. A rooftop heliport operated in the 1960s and briefly in 1977. The MetLife Building's design has been widely criticized since it was proposed, largely due to its location next to Grand Central Terminal.
A skyscraper on the site of Grand Central Terminal was first proposed in 1954 to raise money for the New York Central Railroad and New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, the financially struggling railroads that operated the terminal. Subsequently, plans were announced for what later became the MetLife Building, to be built behind the terminal rather than in place of it. Work on the project, initially known as Grand Central City, started in 1959 and the building was formally opened on March 7, 1963. At its opening, the building was named for Pan American World Airways, for which it served as headquarters. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MetLife) bought the Pan Am Building in 1981 and used it as their headquarters before selling the building in 2005. The MetLife Building has been renovated several times, including in the mid-1980s, early 2000s, and late 2010s.
Site
The MetLife Building is at 200 Park Avenue, between the two roadways of the Park Avenue Viaduct to the west and east, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, U.S. The building faces the Helmsley Building across 45th Street to the north and Grand Central Terminal to the south. Other nearby buildings include One Vanderbilt and 335 Madison Avenue to the southwest; the Yale Club of New York City clubhouse to the west; The Roosevelt Hotel to the northwest; 450 Lexington Avenue to the east; and the Graybar Building to the southeast. The building is assigned its own ZIP Code—10166—and is one of 41 such buildings in Manhattan, .
In 1871, the New York Central Railroad built the Grand Central Depot, a ground-level depot at the intersection of Park Avenue and 42nd Street; it was succeeded in 1900 by Grand Central Station, also at ground level. The completion of Grand Central Terminal in 1913 resulted in the rapid development of the areas around Grand Central, which became known as Terminal City. The Grand Central Terminal complex included a six-story building for baggage handling just north of the main station building, on what is now the site of the MetLife Building. The baggage handling building was converted to an office building late in its history. The surrounding stretch of Park Avenue was developed with International Style skyscrapers during the 1950s and 1960s.
Architecture
Designed in the International style by Richard Roth, Walter Gropius, and Pietro Belluschi, the MetLife Building was developed by Erwin S. Wolfson and completed in 1963 as the Pan Am Building. containing both commercial and office space. Jaros, Baum & Bolles as MEP engineers; From the beginning, the building was intended for large firms, with in office floor area. In total, it has of gross floor area, according to The Skyscraper Center. However, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat gives a conflicting measurement of 10 base stories and 49 tower stories. Exterior planted areas were planned for the sidewalks and above the roof of the base. The north and south facades are divided into three broad segments, while the west and east facades are one segment each. The building's form may have been influenced by the 1961 Zoning Resolution, a major change to New York City zoning code that was proposed just before construction started. The massing is similar to Le Corbusier's unbuilt tower in Algiers, proposed between 1938 and 1942, as well as the nearly contemporary Pirelli Tower in Milan (completed in 1958). The architects intended for the octagonal shape and exterior curtain wall to reduce the building's perceived sense of scale.
Facade
left|upright|thumb|East facade from 44th Street
The facade of the first two stories and mezzanines is clad with granite, aluminum, marble, and stainless steel with glass windows. The third through seventh stories are exclusively sheathed in granite, with window inserts.
The 10th through 59th stories of the MetLife Building contain one of the first precast concrete exterior walls in a building in New York City. The panels themselves measure wide by high and weigh each.
The facade is recessed at the 21st and 46th stories, where there is mechanical space.
The MetLife Building originally bore "Pan Am" displays on its north and south facades and globe logos on the east and west facades. This was swapped with neon "MetLife" displays to the north and south in 1992. These displays were changed again in 2017, being replaced with LED letters to conserve energy. The Pan Am Building was the last tall tower erected in New York City before laws were enacted preventing corporate logos and names on the tops of buildings. Modern New York City building code prohibits logos from being more than above the curb or occupying over on a blockfront. The sign replacements had been permitted because the city government considered the new signs to be an "uninterrupted continuation of a use" that was allowed before the zoning laws were changed. The new columns weighed between . Approximately two hundred existing columns, which supported the former baggage building on the site, were reinforced. Steel panels were fabricated, rather than concrete floors, because steel panels were lighter and could be constructed regardless of unfavorable weather. Over of steel panels are used in the floor plates, each of which contains wire and cable ducts. A standard floor slab could handle loads of . The building's steel frame weighs over in total. Since 1990, there has also been a peregrine falcon nest on the building's roof.
Helipad <span class="anchor" id="Helicopter service"></span>
The initial plans for the Pan Am Building were altered in March 1961 to provide for a helipad on the east side of the roof. The helipad garnered controversy immediately after it was announced, and opponents of the plan cited noise and safety concerns. Lawyers for the building's owners applied for permission to operate the heliport in August 1963, and the New York City Planning Commission confirmed in early 1964 that the owners had sought a permit for the heliport. The New York City Board of Estimate gave final approval to the heliport in January 1965, and test flights began that March, amid continued opposition to the heliport.
Helicopter service started on December 22, 1965. The service was operated by New York Airways, which flew Vertol 107 helicopters from the rooftop helipad to Pan Am's terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK). There was a ticket office for the heliport at the base of the building. Passengers would check in at the ticket office, then take an express elevator to the 57th floor, an escalator to the heliport lounge, then another elevator to the roof. The flight to JFK lasted an average of six minutes and twenty seconds. For a short period starting in March 1967, the company also offered service to Teterboro Airport. All helicopter service stopped on February 18, 1968, because of insufficient ridership, as well as disagreements over funding.
Though discussions to restart helicopter service were held in 1969, approval was not given until early 1977. On May 16, 1977, about one minute after an S-61L landed and its 20 passengers disembarked, the right front landing gear collapsed, causing the aircraft to topple onto its side with the rotors still turning. One of the blades detached, killing four men who were waiting to board and a fifth person at ground level; two other people were seriously injured. Helicopter service was suspended that day and never resumed. The already-controversial building received further negative attention as a result of the incident, and both New York Airways and Pan Am suffered financially in subsequent years.
Interior
Structural and mechanical features<span class="anchor" id="Utilities"></span>
thumb|Vanderbilt Avenue entrance arcade
A central telephone office was installed on the 20th and 21st stories, serving 30,000 telephones within the building. The system, costing $11 million, was the first of its kind in an office building in the United States. The plant had a cooling capacity of 10,000 refrigeration tons () and could use 200,000 pounds of steam every hour. Large fan rooms were placed on the mechanical stories at the 21st and 46th floors, dispersing air to the other floors, and two individual air supply systems were placed on each story. The ventilation systems could deliver every minute. The pipes and ducts had to serve all the building's floors, with an electrical system and water pressure system capable of serving all the building's stories.
Westinghouse Electric Corporation also manufactured 65 elevators and 21 escalators for 200 Park Avenue, which at the time of construction was the largest-ever order for elevators. Five elevators were reserved for freight. The lobby was also designed with plantings and a enclosed plaza. while fourteen more lead from the passageway to the office lobby. The building's original anchor tenant, Pan Am, had a ticket office under a niche off the main lobby, measuring long and high, with circular counters and a wall with a relief map of the world. It was the world's largest airline ticket office at the time of its opening, covering .
Renovations
During a 1980s renovation by Warren Platner, some of retail space were constructed in the lobby. Also installed was a staircase at the center of the lobby on 45th Street, which consisted of alternating travertine and gray-granite risers. The staircase ranged from wide at the ground floor to at an intermediate landing, where it split into two flights and reached a width of at the mezzanine. There were four triangular planters at the bottom of the staircase, which complemented an orange carpet with flower motifs at the mezzanine. The lobby also contained unusual semicircular discs that were either mounted atop poles or suspended from the ceiling.
Artwork
The Pan Am Building's lobby was planned with several works of art, which comprised most of the original lobby's decoration. The sculpture contains a sphere, representing the earth; a seven-pointed star, representing the seven continents and seas; and gold wires representing aircraft flight patterns. It measures wide, and deep. The composer John Cage, a friend of Lippold's, had initially proposed a musical program to complement Flight, consisting of ten loudspeakers, which would have played works by Muzak whenever people walked in and out of the lobby.
At the Pan Am Building's opening, the entrance from the Main Concourse was topped by Manhattan, a mosaic mural of red, white, and black panels by Josef Albers. That work was removed in a 2001 renovation, though Albers had left exact specifications for reproducing the work, and a replica was installed in 2019.
Suspended over the 45th Street entrance was a mural by György Kepes, consisting of two aluminum screens with concentric squares. According to former minority owner Tishman Speyer, , the building's garage contains 248 spots across four levels.