New York EDITION Hotel

 hotel, skyscraper, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, 1909_construction, historic landmark, Renaissance Revival (architecture)

700-foot, 50-story Renaissance-revival hotel completed in 1909. Designed by Napoleon LeBrun & Sons as on office building for The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, it was known as the Metropolitan Life Tower or Met Life Tower. The tower was inspired by the campanile in Venice's Saint Mark's Square.

The company had constructed a headquarters surrounding the site beginning in 1893, also designed by Napoleon & LeBrun. The corner lot at Madison & 24th Street was the last on the block to be acquired, where the Madison Square Presbyterian Church was located. Plans for the new tower were announced in 1905. The church was demolished to make way for the tower.

It was completed in 1909 and was later renovated by Leonard Schultze & Associates in the 1960's which brought the exterior in harmony with its neighbors. The building served as world headquarters of the company until 2005. It was the world's tallest building for nearly four years, until 1913, when it was surpassed by the 792-foot Woolworth Building.

The tower is composed of three main parts, as a Doric column, with a triple-arched base in harmony with the old building. Above soars the tower itself, organized in three vertical stripes of windows in groups of three, with a giant clock face on each side. The top itself can be divided into four parts: a huge five-opening loggia surmounted by a balustrade surrounding a recessed square block, and the typical gold pyramidal roof, punctuated by oculus, and headed at last by a cupola lantern, lighted at night.

The shaft's dominant verticality is modified by the repetition of projecting windows sills every other floor on only the uneven stories, starting at the 3rd. The 4th-, 5th-, and 11th-floor window spandrels are higher than those on other floors. At the 25th, 26th & 27th floors the triple window openings of the outermost bays are reduced to paired windows to allow for the four clock faces, on on each side of the tower. Each clock face is 26.5 feet (8 m) in diameter with each number being four feet (1.2 m) tall. The decorative spandrels each contain a shell supported by a pair of reversed dolphins. The clock dials are encircled by marble wreaths of fruit and flowers. They are constructed of concrete with inlaid white and blue mosaic tile, and rusticated quoins at the corners. The minute hands each weigh half a ton, measuring 17 feet from end to end, built on iron frames sheathed with copper. The hour hands are 13 feet long. The 4-foot-high numbers are edged in copper, as are the peripheral minute markers.

Just as the triple bays and clock faces articulate the tower's shaft, the 3-story arcades - five arches per elevation - characterize the tower's capital. The 29th- & 30th-floor fenestration serves as a transition from the lower tripartite rhythm to the arcade's pentad above. Ten smaller windows light the 29th floor. On the 30th, the ten windows have been arranged in five pairs.

Five windows, one above each arch, light the 34th floor, topped by a cornice. The balustrade above, at the 35th floor, has corners articulated with right angle channels. The freestanding portion of the tower's setback - floors 35-38 - acts as a massive plinth for the pyramidal spire, cupola and lantern above. On the north and south elevations there are six windows - three pairs - on each floor. Just above the setback's cornice (the 39th floor) there are four small windows on the north and south, and three on the east and west. Similarly in the spire, whose marble surfaces are articulated with a raised lattice pattern punctuated with four stories of round hooded dormers. Ten half-round dormers break the latticed stone surface of the north and south elevations. There are seven dormers on the east and west. A broad reveal frames each pyramidal surface; the corner ribs rise to support the quarter-circle bevels of the 45th-floor viewing platform.

The cupola's base, wider on its north and south elevations, is the highest and last demonstration of the tower's rectangular plan. The cupola itself is a regular octagon in plan. The four bronze bells of the tower's chime are mounted on the 46th floor. The 47th-floor windows light a circular staircase within the cupola's core. The cupola's entablature, the highest point at which stone is used, is also the sill for the eight half-round hooded dormers in the cupola's gold-colored anodized aluminum dome, the tower's 48th floor. The steel frames continues to the top, though sheathed in the gold anodized aluminum. The topmost platform is at the 49th floor. The tower's terminal feature is the octagonal lantern on the 50th floor, which is 8-feet in diameter.

The original tower was sheathed in Tuckahoe marble, but during the unfortunate 1964 renovation, plain limestone was used to cover the tower and the East Wing, replacing the old Renaissance-revival details with a streamlined, modern look. The outside of the tower was stripped of its marble quoining, arcades, brackets, balconies and other decorative details.

The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978, and a New York City landmark in 1989. MetLife no longer occupies the building. In 2011, the tower was bought by Marriott International/Ian Schrager Company which converted it into a luxury boutique hotel for their upscale Edition line which opened in 2015.

They converted the space into a hotel with interiors by Rockwell Group which retained the millwork and plasterwork of the historic executives offices on the second floor. In keeping with the posh mood, Edition commissioned a fragrance from Le Labo similar to their 'Thé Noir 29' scent which is generously diffused throughout.

www.editionhotels.com/new-york
s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/1530.pdf
hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.c033529567?urlappend=%3Bseq=433...
www.rockwellgroup.com/projects/the-new-york-edition
skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=303%C2%A0