The stunning ArtDeco skybridge on the MetLife buildings by Madison Square Park is being demolished.
Workers have hacked away at the bridge for the past few weeks to remove the detailed metal work piece by piece, reports Untapped New York. As of Friday, photos show the bridge reduced down to its signature arch curving over East 24th Street.
A public relations representative for SL Green, which owns the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company buildings at 1 Madison Avenue and 11 Madison Avenue which anchor the bridge, said the demolition was required for the redevelopment of the property.
"The as-of-right zoning for One Madison dictates that the redeveloped tower is set back from 24th Street and therefore could not connect to the skybridge, requiring that the skybridge be removed as construction begins. These plans were presented to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, Community Board and preservationists last year," said Jeremy Soffin of Berlin Rosen in a statement.
SL Green bought the 1 and 11 Madison Avenue buildings in 2015 with plans to build a 27-floor, 1.4 million square-feet office tower around parts of the original buildings. MetLife no longer operates from those buildings, which currently host the North American headquarters for Credit Suisse and Sony Corporation, according to the Real Deal.
The bridge’s demolition comes as SL Green kicked off its development with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday, where Mayor Bill de Blasio hailed the coming project as a much-needed boost for the city.
“If this were normal times, we would absolutely be celebrating this project because it’s going to do good for Madison Square Park,” de Blasio said.
SL Green also developed One Vanderbilt, the tallest office building in Midtown, and the fourth highest skyscraper in the city.
A rendering of the proposed office building at One Madison.
While some of the MetLife properties by Madison Square Park are landmarked, the skybridge and the two buildings it’s attached to are not, Untapped New York pointed out in a long post about the history of MetLife’s architectural influence on the city. As the company grew in size, the bridge was built in 1953 to connect the office spaces at the two buildings, as was an underground tunnel.
Executive Director of the Historic Districts Council Simeon Bankoff lamented the loss, saying the MetLife skybridge was a highly evocative example of the Art Deco style.
“It was a particular moment where function and sheer design worked together beautifully,” he told Gothamist. "One of the things about this particular skybridge is that not only are they reasonably rare but this one was quite elegant. The Art Deco style really lent itself nicely to skybridges, just because that was part of the whole graphic style and within the graphics of the time, within the paintings and the illustrations and photography. It really captured an element of 1930s, 1940s New York in a way that skybridges of the 1970s don’t quite do.”
While there are still a handful of skybridges left in New York City, they’re not all as stylish as the MetLife bridge. Still, when encountered in the wild, “they are an unexpected architectural articulation, in that liminal place between the streetfront and the skyline. Your eye travels up and all of the sudden there is an element that’s unexpected and brings delight,” Bankoff said.
