Met Life Tower, New York City

The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower (Met Life Tower) is an early skyscraper occupying a full block in the Flatiron District of Manhattan. The tower was erected between 1905 and 1909 and was the tallest building in the world from 1909 to 1913. The tower originally housed the Metropolitan Life's offices, and since 2015, it is home of the New York Edition Hotel. The tower was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in 1972, and was designated a New York City landmark in 1989.

The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, better known as MetLife, was founded on March 24, 1868. In 1909, the company had become the largest life insurer in the United States. The Metropolitan Life financed, for example, the construction of Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building. During World War II, MetLife placed more than 51 % of its total assets in war bonds and was the largest single private contributor to the Allied cause. Today, MetLife is among the largest global providers of insurance, annuities, and employee benefit programs, with around 90 million customers in over 60 countries.

Since 1876, the had occupied its own large white marble building in Park Place, at the southwest corner of Church Street. In 1890, the company bought the site at the corner of Madison Avenue and East 23rd Street, across from Madison Square Park, intended to serve as the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's home office. Joseph Fairchild Knapp, Metropolitan Life's president, hired architect Napoleon LeBrun (1821-1901) to design a seven-story Italian Renaissance office building on 23rd Street between Madison Avenue and Fourth Avenue. Work commenced in May 1890 with the demolition of five brownstone mansions at 23rd Street and Madison Avenue. After Knapp died in 1891, the building was expanded to 11 stories. The company occupied the second through fifth floors for its own use in 1893. Later expanded to the sixth and ninth stories, while filling the ground-story storefront spaces. The 11-story building was completed in stages through 1905.

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The old neo-Gothic Madison Square Presbyterian Church, adjacent to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company building, on the southeast corner of East 24th Street, was completed in 1854 and demolished in 1906 to make way for the 48-story clock tower. The 700-foot-tall (210 m) structure was completed in 1909.

The Metropolitan Life Tower was designed after St Mark's Campanile in Venice, Italy. The tower is twice as large as St Mark's Campanile. Its façades is divided into three horizontal sections: the base, shaft and capital. The tower is topped by a 40-foot-tall (12 m) pyramidal roof, which is slightly set back and contains a cupola and lantern. It comprises the 39th and higher floors. It was was originally sheathed in Tuckahoe marble, provided by the main contractor, the Hedden Construction Company. During the 1964 renovation, plain limestone was used to cover the tower and the east wing, replacing LeBrun's old Renaissance Revival details with a streamlined, modern look. The tower was designed with oversized exterior details to make it seem smaller than it actually was. A clock face is centered on all four sides of the tower from the 25th through 27th floors. Each clock face is 26.5 feet (8.1 m) in diameter, while the numerals on the clock faces are four feet (1.2 m) tall. The clock faces were the largest in the world upon their completion.

These two sections, the tower and the 11-story wing, comprises the South Building and occupy the city block bounded by Madison Avenue, Park Avenue South, 23rd Street and 24th Street.

The 30-story Art Deco Metropolitan Life North Building, now known as Eleven Madison, was built in three stages directly across 24th Street, from 1928 and 1950. These building became the Metropolitan Life Home Office Complex and remained the company's headquarters until 2005.

In 2007, the Met Life Tower was sold to Africa Israel Investments. In October 2011, the company then sold the tower to Marriott International. Marriott announced in January 2012 that it was converting the tower to the New York Edition Hotel, one of three boutique hotels in the Edition line. The Edition hotels were sold in January 2013 to the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. The property was conveyed to its new owner on its completion. Marriott continues to manage the hotels under long-term contract, and the New York Edition Hotel opened in May 2015 at the Met Life Tower.