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, rising 59 floors above the main Grand Central Terminal building on an eight-storey granite base.
In 1961, 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 was terminated in 1977 after a fatal helicopter accident at the top of the building in May of that year.
The Copter Club, a dining and meeting venue just underneath the heliport level, 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.
After the failure of Pan American Airways, the building was sold to the Metropolitan Life insurance company in 1981. However, the Pan Am logo remained in place for more than ten years, until the MetLife logo replaced it in 1992.
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)