Talk:MetLife Building

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MetLife Building has been listed as one of the Art and architecture good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
July 2, 2021	Good article nominee	Listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on July 25, 2021.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that in a 1987 poll of prominent New Yorkers, the MetLife Building was ranked as the building that respondents most wanted to see demolished?

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Untitled[edit]

Shouldn't this article be moved to Metlife Building if that's its proper name now? Pan Am Building would then redirect. Postdlf 23:17, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I took this out, since many buildings that are hated are in the grid plan, and many beloved buildings are NOT in the grid plan. "Contributing to its unpopularity may be the fact that it is one of the few major buildings in New York which does not conform to the city's orderly grid plan. Its footprint, along with Grand Central Terminal, is directly in the path of Park Avenue, causing it to interrupt both views and continous travel down the length of that thoroughfare." Grand Central Terminal breaks the grid plan, in front of the building. I think it's hated because it is seen as so ugly. Donbas 12:24, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I am wondering if anyone else[edit]

finds this claim to be questionable. " the Pan Am Building is an example of a Brutalist or International style skyscraper" I am trying to break the wikipedia habit, but just can't walk away from this sort of statement. Carptrash 05:06, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

International style sure, but I don't see it as a strong example of Brutalism - I'm removing that Kinou (talk) 23:45, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pop cultural references[edit]

I'd heard that the escalator scenes in Koyaanisqaatsi were shot in the Pan Am Building, but I cannot corroborate.LorenzoB 15:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pan Am Building versus Met Life Building[edit]

I take issue with calling this building the Met Life Building. Major buildings should be called by their original name. If Wal-Mart buys the Chrysler building and slaps their logo on it, are we going to start calling it the Wal-Mart building? The re-direct should be from Met Life to Pan Am. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.205.227.254 (talk) 02:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The building isn't called the Pan Am Building. Why would the article use the original name? Yes, if the Chrysler Building was renamed after Wal-Mart, the article would most likely follow suit. Kinou (talk) 23:44, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it should be Pan Am Building because Met Life should be punished for being assholes for going as far as to file a lawsuit in their quest to persecute a youtuber for daring to include the Met Life Building in his ~~world record~~ (DMCAed by Met Life) biggest Minecraft city.

In conclusion it should be called the Pan Am Building because Met Life is evil.

Fuck Met Life! 96.227.230.168 (talk) 23:16, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is rediculous! Why would I ever call the Chrysler Building the Wal-Mart Building, even if they did decide to re-name it. Why would I call the Sears Tower the "Willis Tower"? No one would know which building I was referring to. The same principles can be applied with this building. Most know this building as the PanAm Building, not the MetLife Building, so this article should follow suit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.213.213.229 (talk) 18:59, 30 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Most know this building as the PanAm Building"? On what do you base that assertion? Regardless, which should be the guiding principle here of the two you've asserted? Should the article be titled by how most people refer to it at present, or by their original names? If the latter, we should move GE Building to RCA Building, and Istanbul would be Constantinople...even old New York was once New Amsterdam. postdlf (talk) 20:54, 30 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why they changed it I can't say. 173.52.75.219 (talk) 01:51, 12 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Let me add my voice to the party who votes for using original names. I guess it has something to do with age. If you always used to call the thing PanAm then it's hard to see that changed. I guess there are reasonable arguments for both sides. I just wonder how many people would feel one way and how many would feel the other way. Of course the owners would probably like to get the public reception switched ... I wonder if one could count Wikipedia access - how many come here through PanAm and how many through the Met. JB. --92.195.122.115 (talk) 14:42, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Grand Central Station[edit]

I have read that the MetLife Building was originally to be built atop Grand Central Station, however due to the public outcry over the demolition of the station, the building was constructed next door or over the road. Perhaps something about this could be in the article. CybergothiChé (talk) 06:28, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

first paragraph[edit]

"The world's largest commercial office space by square footage at its opening, it remains one of the hundred tallest buildings in the United States."

This sentence in the first paragraph of the article doesn't sound right. I would maybe say:

"It was the world's largest commercial office space by square footage at its opening and it remains one of the hundred tallest buildings in the United States." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.46.224.230 (talk) 02:16, 31 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Repetitious phrasing?[edit]

"Developer Erwin S. Wolfson proposed a 65-story tower called Grand Central City to replace the six-story baggage structure (which had by then become an office building) north of the terminal."

Whatever a "baggage structure" is—but is that referring to the same building as in the later sentence "In order to make way for Grand Central City, a six-story baggage handling building was demolished in mid-1960"? If so, we don't need both sentences—certainly not in the form they currently take. Harfarhs (talk) 01:55, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalization nitpick[edit]

A quick nitpick—International Style has some inconsistent capitalization, where sometimes it's fully capitalized and sometimes it's written as "International style". Based on the style's article, I think fully capitalizing it might be best. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:48, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]