17 Facts About MetLife Building

MetLife Building contains an elongated octagonal massing with the longer axis perpendicular to Park Avenue.

The MetLife Building's design has been widely criticized since it was proposed, largely due to its location next to Grand Central Terminal.

Subsequently, plans were announced for what later became the MetLife Building, to be built behind the terminal rather than in place of it.

The MetLife Building has been renovated several times in its history, including in the mid-1980s, early 2000s, and late 2010s.

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.

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The Pan Am MetLife 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.

MetLife Building's base contains a lobby across its lowest two stories.

Pan Am MetLife Building's lobby was planned with several works of art, which comprised most of the original lobby's decoration.

MetLife Building was designed with a six-level parking garage with room for 400 cars.

The Pan Am MetLife Building's developers secured a $70 million mortgage loan and a $65 million construction loan during January 1961.

The lobby, the last part of the Pan Am MetLife 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.

At the time of its completion, the Pan Am MetLife Building was the largest commercial office development in the world by square footage, being surpassed nearly a decade later by 55 Water Street and the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.

In September 1992, MetLife Building announced that it would remove Pan Am signage from 200 Park Avenue and add letters bearing its own name.

In 2005, MetLife Building moved its board room from the Metropolitan Life Tower to 200 Park Avenue.

MetLife Building still retained a boardroom and corporate suite at 200 Park Avenue.

Art historian Vincent Scully, speaking in 1961, expressed his belief that the Pan Am MetLife 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.

Pan Am MetLife Building was highly criticized after its 1980s lobby renovation.