Vulgar Parvenu Tries to Stare Down Old Met Life Tower
Walking through Madison Square yesterday, I had my first real chance to look at the One Madison Park, the towering, skinny fuck-you of an apartment building on 23rd Street, and really contemplate its horrendous impudence.
I haven't been tracking this development step by step, but I'd like to know, first off, how was this allowed to be built? It is just wrong that it should stick a sharp, jagged tooth up into the otherwise perfect Madison Square skyline. The majestic and ever exciting Flatiron Building, and the lordly, dignified Art Deco Metropolitan Life clock tower are the rightful monuments of this square and have been for decades. It seems utterly indecent that this parvenu, glass telephone pole should challenge those landmarks for dominance of the area.
Look at the way One Madison Park bullies its way into the skyline, its panels of glass aimed directly at the Met Life tower in a colossal, skyscraper stare-down. Met Life hopelessly tries to ignore One Madison Park's utter rudeness, it's clockface staring resolutely ahead, but it's no use. OMP is not going to be ignored.
Where's a gale-force gust of hearty wind when you need one?
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Haven't been there in a number of years but at one time that was my favorite park to sit and just see life passing by. With a gross tower that's standing there now how can you see anything going by except for you hurrying away from that spot. Disgusting...
Though shorter than OMP, the far greater architectural crime is committed by the (perpetually bland, 27-year old) Madison Green condominiums- especially considering that it's directly across the street from the Flatiron Building. The visual integrity of this neighborhood had already been lost long ago.
OMP replaced a two-story McDonald's, which on its best days was "depressing" and on it's worst days "offensive"...Besides the intrusion into the skyline, I don't think too much has been lost.
And to be fair, the MetLife Tower is an example of Beaux-Arts architecture, not art deco.
You can also see my novella 'My Father's Semen' in "Cruising for Bad Boys" from STARbook Press for a look what Madison Square Park was like in the 1980s. Met Tower plays an important role in the story.
location aside, the building's design is at least somewhat interesting, especially from this angle.
Before McDonald's sold fatty burgers on the site Chock Full o' Nuts served cups of coffee to the tired Met Life workers. It never ends...
Yeah, the Met Tower was built at the turn of the centry, thus it's a Beaux Arts beauty and one of the City Beautiful's champion landmarks, although given it's less ornate but geometrically eye-pleasing lines of windows from the clockface and down, it alludes to the emerging art deco which would shape NYC in the 20's and 30's.
And yes, the Parvenu is indeed an ugly fuck you to the rest of the park. I remember reading a book there in the shadow of the Flatiron about a year ago but never noticed this insult to architecture.
Never mind, the original building was never intended to look art deco at all, rather it appears it was rennovated in 1964 and thus stripped of it's former ornaments. It's art deco look is due in part either to recreate a streamline design, or it's just half-assed rennovation which came out fairly nice. Wiki only gives me this.
There are four clocks, one on each side of the tower. Each clock is 26.5 feet (8 m) in diameter with each number being four feet (1.2 m) tall. The minute hands each weigh half a ton. The original tower was sheathed in Tuckahoe marble, but during the 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. Much of the building's original ornamentation was removed.
I'm no spot-on judge of architectural styles, and I'm sure Beaux Arts is not far off, but I can't find one city guide that refers to the tower that way, whereas I've found a couple who call the Met Life complex at least part Art Deco.
Anyway, it's a beaut.
I've been hating this building for quite a while since the scaffolding started to reveal what was happening. It looks absolutely scary and tilty and it is unimaginable to me why someone would want to live in such a place.
The Municipal Art Society published a guide consisting of ten walking tours of New York, one of which focused just on Madison Square Park. I think I did that one before the new building went up. I wonder if they will include the chapter in later editions.
By the way, I did all ten tours, but found that the large number of cell phone walkers actually made it difficult to complete a couple. Then there was the neighborhood around City College where a gentleman approached me and made it clear that the people there didn't want real estate developers taking pictures for future gentrification.
Union Square now looks like an open shopping mall, but while mostly a place to avoid, at least the damage there is reversible.
Met Life tower is based on the tower at Piazza San Marco in Venice -- not really Art Deco
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