One Madison (New York City, New York)

 office building, movie / film / TV location, 1957_construction, Modern (architecture)

1madisonnyc.com/

27-story office building originally completed in 1957 as a 13-story building. Designed by D. Everett Waid of the firm of Corbett & Waid, and covering almost the whole block, this building replaced the original Met Life Home Office building, constructed on this site in 1893. It wraps around the Metropolitan Life Building clock tower, and was enlarged beginning in 2021 to designs by Kohn Pedersen Fox.

The original building was designed by Napoleon & LeBrun as an 11-story headquarters for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. It had a series of additions in 1901, 1902 and 1905, which added a few floors to the top, and expanded to fill most of the block. The building was of a Neo-Renaissance design whose facade was covered in a series of white marble-sheathed arcades and rotundas, topped by a flat roof fringed by a thick balustrade. The famous Metropolitan Life Tower was added in 1905, also designed by Napoleon & LeBrun.

In 1953-57 all of the MetLife buildings except the tower were rebuilt and replaced with the single new, mildly Art-Moderne limestone structure that existed until the 2021 rebuild. The limestone facade rises from a grey granite water table, with tall windows and entrances at the double-height ground floor and double-windows in metal frames at the 2nd floor. The 3rd-9th floor (at the west and east ends of the building) have vertical bays of single-, double- or triple-windows with metal frames and silver metal grooved spandrels. The limestone piers are unadorned and uninterrupted. The center portion sets back above the 2nd floor, and then extends up to the 10th floor before setting back again; it stretches 13 bays on the southern facade, between the 5-bay wide, 9-story end sections. The corners of the end sections are marked by flagpoles. On the north elevation, there is a central 4-bay-wide setback above the 8th floor; immediately to the west is a metal-framed skybridge at the 10th floor that connects to the Metropolitan Life North Building across 24th Street. Another 5-bay setback above the 8th floor at the west end leads into the connection with the tall tower. The top four floors of the building are further recessed toward the north side.

The building was later occupied by Credit Suisse. In the early 1960s, the 1909 tower was stripped of most of its Renaissance details in a renovation attempting to match the "modern" building at 1 Madison Avenue. The ground floor is occupied by Charles Schwab, Schnipper's Quality Kitchen, Osteria del Principe restaurant, and a Walgreens pharmacy.

The north entrance facing East 24th Street was used as a filming location for the Amazon series "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" as Midge and Susie leave a successful radio spot recording and enter a taxi with syrup jugs. The building's skybridge can be seen in the background along with Madison Square Park.

The vertical addition comprises 530,000 square feet positioned above a redeveloped 9-story podium. The main entrance, at the north half of the west facade on Madison Avenue, has a recessed 2-story opening with multiple sets of revolving doors and traditional glass doors, with a pair of black steel columns articulating it into three bays. A metal canopy extends out over the ground floor, in front of the window wall behind it. Above the entry is a recessed area of glass curtain wall, extending up to the 9th-floor roof terrace.

The new tower portion rising above the podium is clad in glass and black metal.