Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Building, East 23rd Street

The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Building and Madison Square Presbyterian Church seen from East 23rd Street. Photograph by Detroit Publishing Co., publisher. Source: stereograph Card from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The original 11-story Metropolitan Life Insurance Building on Madison Avenue, corner of Twenty-third Street, was completed by 1894. Here the building is seen enlarged along the East 23rd Street.

The Gothic Madison Square Presbyterian Church, on the southeast corner of East 24th Street, was completed in 1854 and demolished in 1906 to make way for the 48-story Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower, completed in 1909. The new Presbyterian Church is seen across East 24th Street under construction. it was was dedicated on October 14, 1906.

The National Academy of Design and the Lyceum Theatre, on the northwest corner of East 23rd Street and Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue South) was also demolished to make way for the extension of the Metropolitan Life Building.