page_title: Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower
section_title: Tower
hierarchical_section_title: Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower / Architecture / Tower
caption_attribution_description: The Met Life Tower as seen from below
context_page_description: The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, colloquially known as the Met Life Tower, and also as the South Building, is a skyscraper occupying a full block in the Flatiron District of Manhattan in New York City. The building is composed of two sections: a 700-foot-tall tower at the northwest corner of the block, at Madison Avenue and 24th Street, and a shorter east wing occupying the remainder of the block bounded by Madison Avenue, Park Avenue South, 23rd Street, and 24th Street. The South Building, along with the North Building directly across 24th Street, comprises the Metropolitan Home Office Complex, which originally served as the headquarters of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
  The South Building's tower was designed by the architectural firm of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons and erected between 1905 and 1909. Inspired by St Mark's Campanile, the tower features four clock faces, four bells, and lighted beacons at its top, and was the tallest building in the world until 1913. The tower originally included Metropolitan Life's offices, and since 2015, it has contained a 273-room luxury hotel known as the New York Edition Hotel.
context_section_description: The building's tower is located at the northwest corner of the block, at Madison Avenue and 24th Street, with the address 5 Madison Avenue. The tower rises 700 feet (210 m) to its pinnacle. It has a footprint measuring 75 feet (23 m) north-south along Madison Avenue and 85 feet (26 m) west-east on 24th Street. This gives the tower a height-to-width ratio of 8.25:1. The Metropolitan Life Tower is modeled after St Mark's Campanile in Venice, Italy; though the tower is older than its model, since St Mark's Campanile had collapsed in 1902 and was replaced in 1912.
  Like the facades of many early skyscrapers, the tower's exterior was divided into three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column—namely a base, shaft, and capital—in both its original and renovated forms. These three sections include usable space inside and are collectively 660 feet (200 m) tall. The tower is topped by a 40-foot-tall (12 m) pyramidal roof, which is slightly set back and contains a cupola and lantern. The tower was originally sheathed in Tuckahoe marble, provided by 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.
  Some 7,500 short tons (6,700 long tons; 6,800 t) of steel were used in the clock tower's structural frame. The footings of the tower are 60 feet (18 m) deep, supported by twelve columns on the edges and eight columns inside the plot, and anchored to a layer of bedrock between 28 to 46 feet (8.5 to 14.0 m) deep. The main columns were located at the tower's corners, bearing structural loads of up to 10.4 million pounds (4,700,000 kg), when wind pressure was taken into account.
caption: The tower (center) seen from below with clock faces; the east wing is to the right, and the New York Merchandise Mart (far left) and Metropolitan Life North Building (near left) can also be seen
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