Metropolitan Life North Building

11 Madison Avenue | also 38 East 25th Street, 340 Park Avenue South, 330 Park Avenue South | NoMad | built 1932

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Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1903

    MetLife builds a 16-story marble printing annex on the north side of 24th Street

    Years before the North Building, a 75-by-100-foot plot on the north side of East 24th Street was developed as the first Metropolitan Annex, a printing plant of 16 stories faced in Tuckahoe marble. LeBrun designed it, and a tunnel linked it to the main home office. In 1919 Stanford White's earlier building was demolished to make way for a larger annex that would take in this one. D. Everett Waid designed that annex, which was completed in 1921.

    “…developed in 1903 as the first Metropolitan Annex, a 16-story printing plant building faced in Tuckahoe marble…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1904

    March

    Metropolitan Life swaps a mansion lot to Parkhurst's church, and Stanford White designs its new home here

    Hemmed in by Madison Square Presbyterian Church, Metropolitan Life president John R. Hegeman bought Catharine Lorillard Wolfe's mansion across 24th Street for $700,000. He offered the congregation that plot in a trade, plus $300,000 in cash, and the trustees agreed. Stanford White won the commission and insisted on a Roman basilica over the Gothic steepled church the pastor, Charles H. Parkhurst, wanted. Parkhurst conceded to reporters in March 1904 that no steeple could rise above the office buildings crowding the street.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1906

    October 14

    Parkhurst dedicates Stanford White's church, finished after White's murder by Harry Thaw

    Stanford White did not live to see his church open. Harry Thaw had murdered him at Madison Square Garden before it was finished, and Charles Parkhurst dedicated the building on October 14, 1906, admitting in his sermon that White had created a thing of beauty. Gray brick and polychrome terra cotta framed a sanctuary for 1,300, glowing with Louis Comfort Tiffany's favrile glass and mosaics. White's planned pediment sculpture, The Adoration of the Shrine of Truth, was not installed until 1910, after Adolph Weinman modeled it.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1918

    May 26

    Parkhurst preaches his last sermon and demolition of White's church follows within twelve years of its opening

    Charles Parkhurst gave his final sermon on May 26, 1918, after 38 years with the congregation, as its wealthy members moved uptown and the church merged with First Presbyterian on Fifth Avenue. Demolition began that October, an early case of architectural salvage: the organ and pews went to First Presbyterian buildings, and Frank Miller bought the Tiffany windows in 1923 for a chapel at his Mission Inn in Riverside, California. A carved doorway was later found in the Brooklyn Museum's storage.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1929

    November 3

    Metropolitan Life unveils a 100-story tower plan here, then shrinks it after the crash

    Metropolitan Life, which had held the world height record with its 1909 clock tower, hired Harvey Wiley Corbett to design a skyscraper for the block north of its headquarters. The Times published a rendering of a 100-story tower on November 3, 1929, just as the 1929 crash and the Depression were taking hold. D. Everett Waid joined Corbett, and the building was cut back to a base of about 30 stories, built in three stages in 1929-32, 1937-40 and 1946-50. The structure kept the strength to rise higher if ever wanted.

    Source: flatironnomad.nyc

  6. 1932

    The first stage of the North Building opens as an office machine for 22 acres of insurance work

    The first stage, on the east half of the lot, was done in 1932, with the western half following in 1940 and a smaller final section in 1950. Corbett described the building as a highly specialized machine for the headquarters work of Metropolitan Life, the country's largest insurer; it held 22 acres of new office space and 30 elevators. Its basements hold employee dining rooms able to serve 8,000 people a day, lined with murals by N. C. Wyeth and four other painters.

    “The dining areas could accommodate 8,000 diners per day.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 1937

    Four tall buildings on the Madison Avenue blockfront are torn down for the North Building's second stage

    In 1937 four buildings of 12 to 20 stories on Madison Avenue between 24th and 25th Streets came down to make room for the second phase, the northwestern part of the North Building. In 1938 Metropolitan Life filed plans for the western half at a cost of $10 million, and the first section's western wall was to be removed so the two halves would merge into one building. The second phase was finished in 1940.

    “In 1937, four buildings on Madison Avenue between 24th and 25th Street, ranging in height from 12 to 20 stories, were demolished to make way for the second phase of construction…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 1950

    The third and last stage is finished, and the extra stories are never added

    The final piece went up after the Waid and LeBrun annexes were demolished in 1946. Waid and Corbett designed it with Arthur O. Angilly, repeating the first two stages at a smaller scale, and it was complete in 1950. The plans would have allowed extra stories, but Metropolitan Life no longer needed the space, so the 100-story dream of 1929 ended as a much shorter block.

    “There were no plans to build the extra stories, even though the building plan would have allowed for such an expansion…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  9. 1981

    Eyewitness films a janitor's workplace and a murder in the North Building lobby

    The 1981 thriller Eyewitness filmed in the North Building's lobby, which stood in for the workplace of William Hurt's character, a janitor, and for the setting of the brutal murder that opens the story. The film shot other scenes there too. Woody Allen later cast the building as the offices of a broadcasting network in Radio Days, released in 1986.

    “The 1981 thriller Eyewitness used the building's lobby as the place where William Hurt's character was employed as a janitor…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  10. 1985

    Scorsese uses the North Building for Griffin Dunne's office in After Hours

    The building's lobby and offices appeared in several films of the 1980s. Director Martin Scorsese used it for the office of Griffin Dunne's character in After Hours in 1985. It followed the 1981 thriller Eyewitness, which set a murder in the lobby where William Hurt's character works as a janitor, and preceded Woody Allen's Radio Days in 1986, which used it for a broadcasting network's offices.

    “Director Martin Scorsese used the building as the location for Griffin Dunne's office in the 1985 film After Hours.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  11. 1985

    April

    Met Life empties its clock tower and consolidates in the adjacent buildings

    In 1985 the Times reported that Metropolitan Life was leasing its 50-story tower to outsiders for the first time in 75 years. The company planned to move all remaining departments into its other buildings, including 11-25 Madison, by year's end. It had tested the idea in 1982 by letting four tower floors through a brokerage, and by April 1985 26 of the tower's 40 leasable floors were taken.

    Source: Internet Archive

  12. 1995

    CS First Boston signs for 1.1 million square feet and a rebuild of the block-size building

    Metropolitan Life's managers considered a $300 million renovation of the aging 1930s building in 1994 but wanted an anchor tenant to justify it. CS First Boston, an investment bank owned by Credit Suisse, signed in early 1995 for 1.1 million square feet, later 1.6 million, because it wanted trading floors with ample power and open space. The huge floors, some near 100,000 square feet, meant the building would have only a handful of tenants instead of 50 or 60.

    Source: Internet Archive

  13. 1998

    Eleven Madison Park opens at the corner of the building, owned by Danny Meyer

    Eleven Madison Park opened in 1998 at the Madison Avenue corner of the building, facing Madison Square, in a dining room designed by Bentel & Bentel and owned by restaurateur Danny Meyer. Chef Daniel Humm and Will Guidara joined in 2006 and bought it in 2011. It has held three Michelin stars since 2012 and was ranked first on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list in 2017. It began serving a vegan menu in June 2021, and in August 2025 it announced that fish and meat would return as options.

    “The restaurant originally opened in 1998 and was owned by restaurateur Danny Meyer.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  14. 2020

    October

    The Art Deco sky bridge linking the North Building to the tower is dismantled

    In the fall of 2020 workers took apart the stainless steel sky bridge on East 24th Street that tied 11 Madison Avenue to the Metropolitan Life tower at 1 Madison. A photographer who lives nearby documented the work, with panels cut out one by one from south to north from October 24 into November. The owner, SL Green, confirmed that the Art Deco-period bridge was being demolished.

    Source: Untapped New York

Further reading

Nearby

All 23 buildings with stories in NoMad