Metropolitan Life North Building

Metropolitan Life North Building
Basic data
Place:	11-25 Madison Avenue, New York City , United States
Construction time :	1928-1950
Status :	Built
Architects :	Harvey W. Corbett , D. Everett Waid
Use / legal
Usage :	offices
Technical specifications
Height :	137.5 m
Floors :	30th

The Metropolitan Life North Building ( MetLife North Building for short ) is an Art Deco skyscraper on Madison Avenue in Manhattan , New York City . It occupies the entire block between 24th and 25th streets as well as Madison Avenue and Park Avenue South .

history

MetLife North Building (left) and the MetLife Tower

The Metropolitan Life North Building, designed by Harvey W. Corbett , was to be the tallest building in the world at 100 stories, even taller than the 381-meter-high Empire State Building . How high it should finally get is unknown, but it would not have exceeded the limit of 400 meters.

In 1928 the construction of the skyscraper began, for which in 1919 the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, completed in 1906 by Stanford White for McKim, Mead, and White , had to be demolished. In 1933 construction work was stopped due to financial problems as a result of Black Thursday . By then, only 29 floors had been completed. Work on the skyscraper ceased for the next few years and was not completed until 1950. However, not with 100 floors as planned, but with only 30.

The thirty elevators, which are above average for a building of this size, still bear witness to the fact that the Metropolitan Life North Building should be built much higher than it ultimately was. From a technical point of view, today's building could still be completed according to the original plans. However, this is not yet planned.