MetLife Building, Office skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York, US
The MetLife Building is a 246-meter (807-foot) office tower in the Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, rising 59 floors above street level into the skyline. The facade combines concrete with large glass panels that give the structure its geometric appearance.
On March 7, 1963, the tower opened as headquarters for Pan Am airline, whose logo once adorned the facade. In 1981 Metropolitan Life Insurance Company acquired the property and gave it its current name.
The name recalls the insurance company Metropolitan Life, which has owned the tower since the early 1980s and created thousands of jobs in the financial district. Today numerous companies occupy the office floors while commuters stream daily through the lower levels toward the station.
The tower stands between the two elevated roadways of the Park Avenue Viaduct, with a pedestrian passage from the lobby into Grand Central's Main Concourse. The building has its own ZIP Code, 10166, and a parking garage occupies its base.
New York Airways served the rooftop heliport from December 1965 to February 1968 and again from February to May 1977, linking it to JFK and LaGuardia. Flights stopped after the May 16, 1977 crash, in which a rotor-blade fragment struck and killed a pedestrian on Madison Avenue.
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