Last year when I was in New York I visited every building that once was the tallest in the world…..or so I thought. Turns out when I looked up the Met Life Building on Google Maps it sent me to the new headquarters instead of the original building. So this year on my way overseas I stopped in New York for a night (I find flights are easier and cheaper out of JFK to Europe) and seeing the original Met Life Building was a priority.
Too be honest, I was not going to write a blog about visiting the building since I wrote about it last year, but I had such a good experience I wanted to share it with you. My first plan was to splurge on the $300 a night Edition Hotel that has taken the clock tower of the old Met Life headquarters. That plan was squashed when the price jumped to $600 a night (there is splurging and there is just throwing money away 🙂 ), so I chose to just visit and as I approached from the west I saw the clock tower rising above ? Park. I love the 1920’s architecture of the tower and I could not wait to look inside. I expected to be turned away, but to my surprise the front deck gave a key for a room to the 25th floor to a bellhop named Mike and he took me to see a room and the view.
The room was quite small (although maybe not for Manhattan) and consisted of a queen size bed and small lounge area (you can see the edge of the bed in the photo). There was the bathroom and closet, which together seemed as big as the rest of the room. Everything was of very high quality and the room was quite elegant.
The best part of my visit was when we got back to the lobby. I handed Mike a small tip and was heading out when we both realized it had started to rain again. I was about to deal with it when Mike said to wait and gave me a very nice hotel umbrella. I told him I would not be able to return it and he simply said it was a souvenir of my visit to the Edition Hotel. Wow. What a guy. I was so surprised at the gesture for a bum that came off the street just to see a room. 🙂
