Very Cool Building

An Example of a Very Cool Building:

In 1929, MetLife Insurance Company started constructing a building at 11 Madison Avenue. One street block north of the MetLife building, and two blocks south of the New York Life building, in New York City, it was intended to rival the Chrysler Building in beauty and height. It was to be over a hundred stories tall. Then the depression hit, and they stopped building it at 29 stories. The building takes up the whole block between Madison and Park Avenue and sits between 24th & 25th Street. West of it is Madison Square Park.

It has a beautiful lobby. I recommend going there (24th & Park Ave) and walk around the lobby. It's a fascinating lobby with lots of marble, a flower shop, a snack shop, and a totally cool ceiling. In the basement, there's a health club, cafeteria with great food, shoe shiners, dry cleaners, a bank, bank machines, a conference room, and many other cool things I haven't found yet.

Credit Suisse First Boston is located there now. Since the building was structured for 60 more stories, CSFB was able to place back-up power generators on the roof that power the building in the event of a power failure. The building looks strong and is strong.

In addition, there's lots of computer power contained in it. The trading floor (4th floor) has all kinds of machines and feeds buzzing with constant real-time information flowing around. Below it on the 3rd floor is a massive computer room. In one section, I saw about forty rows of several cabinets containing very big and fast HP, Sun, and Intel machines, routers, etc. Hard disk arrays everywhere too. Most desks on the remaining floors have at least one computer on them. It's one of many VeryCoolBuilding instances in Manhattan.

-- PhilipEskelin

I used to walk past this building most days on my way to lunch. (I worked at 11 E. 26th St., just north of the park. Wendy's and McDonalds were just south of the park. I never went in, though. (Madison Square Park was the original site of Madison Square Garden, which was moved when Penn Station was demolished and rebuilt in the early 1960s.)

I'd heard the building was constructed from Italian marble, and World War II cut off the supply. -- PaulChisholm

The foundation on one side is much thicker than the foundation on the other, because the thicker side was built before the decision to shorten the building. Hearing this story helped form YouArentGonnaNeedIt.

This is one of the reasons why the analogy between constructing software and constructing buildings doesn't hold. Since they were gonna build over a hundred stories at the time they layed the foundation, they did need it to be that strong. Imagine strenthening the foundation as stories are added; sure to be quite a costly process. -- AalbertTorsius

Are the murals still there? -- KentBeck

Yep. There are four tenants: CSFB, Gould Paper Corp., Emanuel Ungaro, and Wells BDDP Inc. In 1993, they closed it down for a $300 million renovation (largest of its kind in NYC); before that it housed about 21,000 MetLife employees.

The art deco lobby is three stories tall, designed by architects D. Everett Ward and Harvey Wiley Corbett. It contains book-marked cremo marble walls, sparkling granite floors, and coffered ceilings complemented by five silver bas relief sculptures representing the MetLife principles of Health, Industry, Thrift, Recreation, and Security. Danny Meyer, co-owner of Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern, recently announced that he would open a restaurant at Eleven Madison.

The building is listed on the Register of Historic Places. When I walked in today, a very distinguishing feature during off-hours is the huge bronze gates that block off each major entrance at the four corners of the building. The exterior is made from Alabama limestone. During the renovation, 2,036 new windows were installed, 2,000 tons of steel were ripped out and 4,000 put back in. With 47 elevators, the beast contains a super-frieght elevator capable of holding 7,500 pounds.

What I like about the building is that it's not very popular. I couldn't find any pictures of it on the Internet. It's right on Madison Square Park, where you can eat a sandwich and listen to outdoor Jazz on Thursdays. It's got a "cashless society" system where the same card you use to get in the building is used for buying everything (lunch, coke, candy bars, etc). The investment they put into the lobby pays off. It upholds an aesthetic QualityWithoutaName that makes it easy to feel good about yourself when you're there - the same QualityWithoutaName that got torn down along with the old Penn Station Building (biggest mistake NYC ever made?).

-- PhilipEskelin

Stop it Phil - you're making me miss NewYorkCity, which I seldom do since moving out to SF. -- JoshuaKerievsky

Another MetLife Building

Gallery of pictures: http://www.clocks.org/new_york_state/ny_manhattan_metlife_gallery_1.html

The last photo of the "New Met Life Bldg" is the old Pan Am Bldg. We were some of the first tenants and would sit at our desks as stress fractures opened in the walls because the floors that housed the huge air conditioning and heating units had not been reinforced properly.