Нью-Йорктегі 200 Парк Авеню ғимараты

Office skyscraper in Manhattan, New York
the building at 200 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan

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. Designed in the International style by Richard Roth, Walter Gropius, and Pietro Belluschi and completed in 1962, the MetLife Building is 808 feet (246 m) 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. as of 2022, 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. The roof also contained a heliport that operated briefly during the 1960s and 1970s. The MetLife Building's design has been widely criticized since it was proposed, largely due to its location next to Grand Central Terminal. Proposals for a skyscraper to replace Grand Central Terminal were announced 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.

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. 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, as of 2019. 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.

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.

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 6 feet (2 m) wide by 13.67 feet (4 m) high and weigh
The facade is recessed at the 21st and 46th stories, where there is mechanical space. The MetLife Building originally bore 15 feet (5 m) "Pan Am" displays on its north and south facades and 25 feet (8 m) 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 25 feet (8 m) 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.

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.

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 was placed on the roof because the building has no usable basement, as all the subterranean space is part of Grand Central Terminal. The plant could melt up to of ice each day 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 40 feet (12 m) 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 25 feet (8 m) niche off the main lobby, measuring 135 feet (41 m) long and 11 feet (3 m) 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 .

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 10 feet (3 m) wide at the ground floor to 20 feet (6 m) at an intermediate landing, where it split into two flights and reached a width of 30 feet (9 m) 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.

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 80 feet (24 m) wide, and 40 feet (12 m) 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 owner Tishman Speyer, as of 2021, the building's garage contains 248 spots across four levels. efn|However, according to The Skyscraper Center, there are 315 parking spaces. Different companies with full floor leases designed their spaces in various manners. Some tenants placed private offices along the perimeter, with important executive offices at the far corners of the story. Other tenants placed open spaces at the west and east ends of the floor or in the center. The Sky Club, a private luncheon club, had been on the 56th floor of the Pan Am Building. For several years the Sky Club had contained a private restaurant. Trippe had commissioned a mural of clipper ships for the walls of the Sky Club; it was sent to Tucker's Point resort in Bermuda after the club shuttered. On the 57th and 58th stories was the Copter Club, which was used by passengers of the short lived helicopter service. The New York Central Railroad was losing money, partially on paying taxes on the building's air rights. New York Central wanted to sell the property or its air rights to allow the construction of a skyscraper above or on the terminal's site. At the same time, the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad retained a partial interest in the terminal's operation.

Initially, New York Central's chairman Robert R. Young had been negotiating with developer Erwin S. Wolfson and their mutual friends Herbert and Stuart Scheftel to determine how the Grand Central site could be redeveloped. After these discussions broke down, two competing plans for the replacement of Grand Central Terminal were proposed in 1954. The other, by Fellheimer & Wagner, was put forth by New Haven's chairman Patrick B. McGinnis along with Wolfson. The plan envisioned a 55 story building, the largest office building in the world with Both proposals were poorly received, with 235 architects cosigning a letter imploring Young and McGinnis to reject the plans. Neither plan was ultimately ever carried out. Richard Roth of Emery Roth and Sons, who created the design, had agreed to participate only if the office building would not result in the passenger concourse's demolition. Roth and Wolfson's plan was effectively forgotten in March 1955 when Zeckendorf was named the partner for any new development in the vicinity of Grand Central. Zeckendorf and Pei modified the blueprints for their 80 story tower but never publicly announced the revised plans. For various reasons, the hyperboloid tower never progressed past the planning stage. The building had faced extensive criticism from both professionals and the general public; the railroads faced significant financial shortfalls; and the economy as a whole had started to decline, leaving Zeckendorf unable to finance the project. Meanwhile, traffic around Grand Central Terminal worsened in the late 1950s.

In January 1958, representatives of an unnamed large company, who were unaware of Grand Central City's cancellation, notified Stuart Scheftel that they were interested in leasing space in the new building. The New York Central and New Haven railroads were guaranteed at least $1 million a year from the agreement. Despite the presence of tracks under the building site, Wolfson said a survey of the site had "no insurmountable problems". James Ruderman, the building's structural engineer, had drawn up preliminary plans for a steel framework spanning the tracks. Wolfson hired James D. Landauer Associates Inc. to handle leasing at the proposed building, negotiating directly with tenants' brokers. Wolfson found Roth's revised plan to be unsatisfactorily modest for such a prominent site. In July 1958, architects Walter Gropius and Pietro Belluschi were announced as co designers for Grand Central City. Wolfson expressed his hope that Gropius and Belluschi, both prominent architects in the Modern style, would be able to help devise an "esthetic and functional design". A week after being hired, Gropius suggested that the slab be oriented east–west, with a large plaza or courtyard in front of the tower, similar to the design of Lever House. Gropius also recommended that the building include a textured facade, rather than the metal and glass curtain walls commonly used by the Roth firm in its previous buildings. That October, Wolfson traveled to Europe to study buildings and gain inspiration for the building's design. Gropius and the Roth firm continued to modify their design through early 1959. The Roth firm said the octagonal massing could absorb "different planes of light as on a diamond", while Gropius said the new alignment was easier for air conditioning.

Five leases for a collective in Grand Central City were announced immediately after the final design was announced in February 1959. A contract for of structural steel was awarded to U. S. Steel's American Bridge division that May; at the time, the contract was reportedly the most expensive ever awarded for an office building. Ruderman finalized his plans for the framework in September 1959. It was the first British–American joint venture for a real estate development in the United States. concluded that the building would be worth twice as much as the Empire State Building. Wolfson and City Centre paid Kyle $50,000, which at the time was the highest single appraiser's fee ever recorded. efn|New York Central's income was guaranteed to be $1.1 million or 8 percent of the gross rental, whichever was larger. Final plans were filed with the New York City Department of Buildings on November 24, 1959. Construction on the structure officially started two days afterward on November 26, and Cushman & Wakefield were named as leasing agents for Grand Central City the following month. This was followed by contracts for the building's soundproofing and elevators in February 1960. Gropius was involved in all aspects of the building's design, from traffic flow to minor architectural details, which sometimes led to conflicts with the project's other architects and engineers. For example, he wanted the lobby's bronze details to contain a matte finish, and he requested that the elevator penthouse be no higher than 26 feet (8 m) above the roof so that it did not "look silly". Work on the tower itself was held up by a steel strike that lasted through much of 1960; Foundations for the building were sunk in August 1960.

Pan Am founder Juan Trippe signed a 25 year, lease for across 15 floors, plus a new main ticket office at 45th Street and Vanderbilt Avenue, in September 1960. In an indication of the widespread interest surrounding this lease, the mayor and the governor of New York both congratulated Grand Central City's builders after the lease was signed. Following this, Pan Am hired Ivan Chermayeff to design the building's signage. At the time, the building was more than half rented. The Pan Am Building's construction involved over 200 engineers and 7,500 workers from 75 trades. The facade cladding was installed in two ways. The facade of the base was bolted into place, down to the individual spandrels and mullions. The Mo Sai panels for the tower were installed via an interior hoist. When Wolfson died that June, James D. Landauer was selected to oversee the building's completion. The lobby, the last part of the Pan Am Building to be completed, was built with cheap materials such as restroom tiles because the builders had run out of money toward the project's completion. and tenants started moving into the structure the following month. The building had secured tenants for 91 percent of its office space upon opening, in large part to its central location. Within three months, the Pan Am Building was 92 percent rented and 70 percent occupied; by the first anniversary of its opening, the building was 97 percent leased with 241 tenants. This contrasted greatly with the smaller Empire State Building, which was only 25 percent rented when it opened and did not reach full occupancy for more than a decade afterward. being surpassed nearly a decade later by 55 Water Street and the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. Besides Pan Am, other early tenants included the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Alcoa, the Hammermill Paper Company, National Steel Corporation, Kodak, the Reader's Digest Association, Mitsui, Chrysler, and the British Iron & Steel Corporation. The shops at the Pan Am Building's base were opened in August 1963. The tenant selection process was rigorous, as Cushman and Wakefield examining the services and goods sold by potential tenants: for example, the firm's vice president got haircuts from each of the six applicants for the lobby barbershop. Furthermore, average rents in the Pan Am Building were about , slightly higher than the average of in other Midtown Manhattan buildings. That year, Pan Am bought a 45 percent stake in the building from the estate of Jack Cotton, After Penn Central went bankrupt in 1970, it sought to sell its properties, including the land below the Pan Am Building. Among the building's tenants during this time was the United Brands Company (now Chiquita Brands International), whose CEO, Eli M. Black, jumped from the 44th story to his death on February 3, 1975. Pan Am was considering moving its headquarters from the building by 1978. That year, the airline bought the remaining 45 percent stake in the building from Wolfson, obtaining full ownership of the property. A Pan Am subsidiary, Grand Central Building Inc., acquired the underlying land for about the following year as part of a legal settlement with Penn Central. The airline sustained large financial losses during the early 1980s recession, leading it to announce in February 1980 that it was considering selling the building. About half the leases were scheduled to expire in three or four years. Many lessees were exempt from paying the building's operating costs, which made the Pan Am Building only marginally profitable for the airline.

When the Pan Am Building officially went on the market in May 1980, Business Week magazine predicted that it might be sold for as much as The sale was so complex that Landauer Associates published a 65 page brochure just to describe the terms of the sale. efn|Additional firms were invited to bid on the property, though some chose not to bid, while the others were eliminated in the first round of consideration. The other bidders included the Prudential Life Insurance Company; Corporate Property Investors; the Fisher Brothers; the Aetna Life Insurance Company; the Rreef Corporation; and an investment group which included Bernard H. Mendik, Robert Tishman, and Jerry Speyer. Pan Am normally would have paid a $4 million tax, but it ultimately paid only $125. At the time, leases for much of the interior space were set to expire all at once during the early 1980s. Starting in 1984, MetLife renovated about half of the space as the original tenants' leases expanded. The deteriorating lobby, used by 100,000 pedestrians a day, was extensively reconfigured by Warren Platner. In addition, some mechanical systems were upgraded to comply with building codes, and retail spaces were added. Asbestos fireproofing on the office stories was removed in advance of an anti asbestos regulation passed by the city government in 1985. The lobby renovation had been completed by 1987 at a cost of $15 million. and closed down shortly afterward. The signs were changed in January 1993. Though 200 Park Avenue subsequently became known as the MetLife Building, its namesake was then headquartered in the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower. Low pressure compressed air was used to clean the facade, while Kohn Pedersen Fox renovated the lobby. The same year, the company considered selling 200 Park Avenue to pay for its acquisition of Travelers Life & Annuity. At the time, the sale was the largest ever transaction involving an office building. The company still retained a boardroom and corporate suite at 200 Park Avenue. MetLife announced in 2015 that it was consolidating its operations at 200 Park Avenue, with of space in the building. At the time, the media reported that Donald Bren, the billionaire owner of the real estate firm Irvine Company, held a 97.3 percent ownership stake in the building. While Tishman Speyer remained the managing partner of the property, the company's stake in the MetLife Building had been reduced to less than 3 percent. Plans to renovate the lobby were devised in 2016. Three restaurant owners leased space in the building in mid 2022.

When the octagonal design for 200 Park Avenue was first announced in 1959, it was controversial. Walter McQuade, writing for The Nation, found even the drawings for the building to be dissatisfying. Grand Central City was lambasted internationally by Italian critic Gillo Dorfles and Romanian architect Martin Pinchis. Architect Victor Gruen questioned the parking garage's necessity given the site's proximity to a major railroad terminal, Critics also expressed concerns that the building would burden existing transit infrastructure. Historian Paul Zucker defended the building's urbanism, and urban planner Charles Abrams and Architectural Record editor Emerson Goble also defended the plan as an addition to the cityscape. Upon its completion, the Pan Am Building received largely negative feedback, in large part because of its central location. this only prompted further negative reviews. Ada Louise Huxtable called the building "a colossal collection of minimums", with the lobby artwork being a "face saving gimmick". Many observers viewed the monolithic design as obstructing vistas down Park Avenue. Art historian Vincent Scully, speaking in 1961, expressed his belief that the Pan Am Building was a "fatal blow" to Park Avenue's continuity, while Claes Oldenburg mocked the building's positioning on Park Avenue with his 1965 artwork Proposed Colossal Monument for Park Avenue, NYC: Good Humor Bar. The building's own engineers had not expected any praise for the building, which had been developed solely for the purpose of making money. Gropius himself wrote a speech in which he praised the building but provided few specific details. This speech was published in the June 1960 version of Architectural Record with no modifications. Gropius had asked Paul Zucker of the New School to write an article that responded to criticism of the building on "an objective and professional level", although there is no evidence that Zucker ended up writing such an article.

The Pan Am Building was also highly criticized after its 1980s lobby renovation. Carter Wiseman compared the new decorations as being gaudy in a similar manner to performer Liberace, except that "even Liberace would have blushed at the vulgarity". Paul Goldberger of The New York Times said that even though the previous design was "stark and unwelcoming", the new decorations created "a space that is so forced in its joy, so false and so disingenuous, that they make one yearn for some good old fashioned coldness". Architect Robert A. M. Stern said in 1988 that the building, a "wrong headed dream badly realized", warranted preservation from the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, although he rhetorically suggested tearing down the building when the Pan Am sign was replaced several years later. By the beginning of the 21st century, some onetime critics expressed ambivalence toward the building's presence, while preservationists advocated the protection of mid 20th century buildings such as the MetLife Building.