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More in Link: http://www.yimbynews.com/2016/03/met...announced.html

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MetLife Building Redesign Competition Finalists Announced

Back in September, we told you about a competition to conceive a redesign of the MetLife Building. Earlier this week, the six finalists of the “Reimagine a New York City Icon” competition were announced. The competition, sponsored by Metals in Construction magazine and the Ornamental Metal Institute of New York, isn’t part of any actual process in the works to modify the Midtown office tower, but are fascinating ideas of what could be. Perhaps these ideas will be put into use at other buildings.

Before we get to the finalists, which split a $15,000 prize, here is a some background on the building itself. The 59-story-tall MetLife Building is located immediately north of Grand Central Terminal, at 200 Park Avenue. Designed by Emery Roth & Sons, Pietro Belluschi, and Walter Gropius, it opened on March 7, 1963, only back then it was the Pan Am Building. It served as the airline’s headquarters and even had airport helicopter shuttle service on its roof. Though there was a gap in the service from 1968 to 1977, its resumption was short-lived and came to a particularly gruesome end. A Sikorsky S-61’s landing gear collapsed, leading to one of the rotor blades coming off, killing three people waiting to board (with a fourth dying later) and then flying off the roof to kill a woman on the street, for a total of five dead. The shuttle service never resumed.

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