Location: Southeast corner of East 24th Street and
Park Avenue, New York, New York
Architect: Napoleon LeBrun & Sons
Date Completed: 1909
Height: 700 feet (213 meters)
The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company built its headquarters on the eastern border of
Madison Square Park in 1890.
Met Life, chartered in 1868, grew quickly, pioneering the sale of insurance to immigrant
wage earners whose death could mean destitution for their families. By 1909, the company
was the nation's largest life insurer.
John Rogers Hegeman, Metropolitan Life's charismatic president, recognized the value of an
impressive home office. In 1907, he hired Napoleon LeBrun & Sons to design a great
marble office tower taller than any other building in the world.
The fifty story tower is classical in nature, with a standard base, shaft and capital,
ending in a pyramidal spire, cupula and lantern.
Four monumental clocks adorn the tower, each encircled with Italian Renaissance motifs of
wreaths and flowers. The tower thus provided time, light and music.
The Met Life Tower, in design, was actually a close replication of a well-known historical
structure, the sixteenth century Campanile in Venice's Piazza San Marco.
In 1960, the original marble was replaced with limestone, and much of the original
ornamentation was removed. LeBrun's detailing around the clock faces was preserved.
Metropolitan Life Tower
