Pan Am Building

[ShiftyNJ]

I was just at a fundraiser in the city and -- on the way home -- passed through the lobby of 200 Park Ave, built in the early 1960s as the Pan Am building.

Designed in the brutalist/international style and offset from the grid to span Park Avenue and 44th St (As does the Helmsley (formerly New York Central) Building just north and Grand Central Terminal just south) it can thus be be seen from a distance almost in its entirety. It is frequently noted as the building New Yorkers would most like to see demolished.

I wanted to work for Pan Am as a kid. When they went under in 1991, the 25-foot-high "meatball" logo was removed from the 44th St sides, and the 15-foot-high PAN AM logo from the Park Avenue sides, to be replaced by those of MetLife. Old-school New Yorkers often still call it by its original name.

I then passed through Grand Central, which made me feel better.

[50Plus]

Were you able to garner any photographs to share?

[ShiftyNJ]

I took one of the interior of Grand Central. There is nothing to really see in the lobby of 200 Park.

[Bluelight]

I've passed through that lobby as well, several times during my wanderings through the city when I had spare time on my way to visit friends in Long Island. Pan Am wasn't even a thing when I was born in 1993, but it still has a legacy as one of the most defining characteristics of American culture during the 1960's, which is personally one of my favorite decades of the 20th century; so much changed during that time, so much happened so quickly. I love knowing the history of my environment, especially when it's so tangible. The Met Life building for example, that's a surviving relic of that era, and there are people still alive (and fairly young) who were an active part of that time period. Fifty years from now, most people won't know the meaning of "Pan Am", that term will be reserved mainly for historians.

[Virge]

When you mentioned MetLife I knew exactly what building you're talking about. I saw it on my one and only trip to NYC in 2010. I turned the corner and saw it and thought it was the ugliest building I'd seen all that day. I see why New Yorkers would like to have it torn down.

[ShiftyNJ]

Fifty years from now, most people won't know the meaning of "Pan Am", that term will be reserved mainly for historians.

If that is true, it will be a sad thing. Pan Am was as ubiquitous a brand around the world as Coke for the better part of 50 years. The founders of what became jetBlue had attempted to purchase the brand from its current owners; I wish they had succeeded.

[Rareboy]

I took one of the interior of Grand Central. There is nothing to really see in the lobby of 200 Park.

So true....the Pan Am lobby is just corporate blahdom....I'm so excited.....we are in NYC for a fundraiser for an organization we support ....once a year, we have oysters and clams at the Grand Central Oyster Bar. I always feel enriched going into the Grand Central Station.

[ShiftyNJ]

This was their real architectural contribution to the city, which sadly was allowed to deteriorate and then be demolished under Delta's watch.

And I agree... going through Grand Central makes you feel like you ARE somebody, going somewhere important. Unlike Penn which makes you feel like you are a rabbit or mole.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

As I recall many New Yorkers hated the Twin Towers and wanted them torn down.

My Advice New York: Careful what you wish for.

The building captures the spirit of the time it was built in. Most of the sky scrapers in New York, or for that matter any city, are slices of time, cultural mores and social standards that have been frozen in steel, glass and stone.

No one likes the whole of history, we all have bits and pieces that we want excised out.

It seems New Yorkers have a problem with structures build in the 70's. Perhaps its not so much the buildings but that particular decade New Yorkers have problems with?

[ShiftyNJ]

I'm not a fan of brutalist architecture generally.

We often agree locally that the 1950s-1970s were an exceptionally unfortunate time in church architecture. The Catholics in NJ/NY in particular went around building some very strange creations, mostly out of the same terracotta shade of brick.