Pan Am Building
Once the largest commercial office building in the world, the Pan Am Building (also now known as 200 Park Avenue)
was completed in 1963 as the home base for Pan American World Airways. The skyscraper replaced the original Grand Central Terminal Office Building, and rises 59 floors above the main Grand Central Terminal building on an eight-storey granite base.
In 1961 (some sources say 1965), a heliport facility was opened on the building's roof, offering helicopter service from Manhattan to the three major New York area airports. This service stopped in 1968 and was resumed in 1971: then was terminated permanently in 1977 after a fatal helicopter accident at the top of the building in May of that year.
The "Copter Club", a luxurious dining and meeting venue just underneath the heliport level on the 57th and 58th floors, closed some years later but was reopened in the 1990's as the "Sky Club".
This is the space through which Nita and Kit make their way in company with Fred to access the roof and the displaced Lexington Avenue Local worldgate. The space was once again closed in late 2005 due to post-9/11 security concerns, and select items from the Club's art collection were sold at auction and on eBay in January of 2006.
In 1981, the Metropolitan Life insurance company bought the building from Pan Am: but the venerable Pan Am "globe" logo remained in place for ten years until the airline's first incarnation ceased operation. In 1992, the MetLife logo finally replaced the globe, and the building was formally renamed.
More information about the building's architecture and history can be found at the Met Life Building entry at Wikipedia.
A pair of peregrine falcons nest on the 58th floor level of the building. These birds, known informally as "Lois and Clark", have considerable history in the area: one of them is a product of the MetLife falcon-breeding program (based at Metropolitan Life's original headquarters building, further north and west in Manhattan), and Clark is apparently one of the Princes of the Air to whom Rhiow refers in TBONWM. (SYWTBAW)
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