The New York City landmark previously known as The Pan Am Building -- now the MetLife Building -- has a long and storied history. It was the 1960s, with an abundance of jet-age optimism. The CEO of Pan Am, Juan Trippe, wanted to make a properly big deal of his massive new NYC headquarters. Although resembling a tombstone, architect types would say the design is a mix of Bauhaus and brutalist.
The idea was simple: bypass the gridlock of the street by turning a skyscraper into a 59-story jetway. For a brief, glittering moment in the 1960s and a tragically short revival in 1977, New York Airways (NYA) partnered with Pan Am and operated a scheduled helicopter airline right off the roof of the Pan Am Building. It was really a flex of corporate dominance -- who else could say they shuttle passengers from the rooftop of their headquarters, en route to their airplanes? Shuttling passengers from Manhattan directly to JFK International was an idea that was actually ahead of its time, but for unfortunate reasons.
Unfortunately, and tragically, the dream of a Jetsons-esque city came to a halt on May 16th, 1977. A mechanical failure atop the roof of 200 Park Ave. took the lives of passengers, rained debris down to the streets below, and even took the life of a bystander who was waiting for the bus.