As part of the Metropolitan Life Home Office Complex, the North Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 19, 1996.

[6] A plot on the north side of 24th Street, measuring 75 by 100 feet (23 by 30 m), was developed in 1903 as the first Metropolitan Annex, a 16-story printing plant building faced in Tuckahoe marble.

[7] The North Building was designed in the 1920s by Harvey Wiley Corbett and D. Everett Waid and built in three stages.

[13] Following the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression, Corbett and Waid resubmitted plans for the building in November 1930.

[15] Upon the first stage's completion, Corbett said, "it is a highly specialized building designed primarily as a machine to do as efficiently as possible the particular headquarters' work of our largest insurance company".

[15][16] The original 16-story Metropolitan Life annex, at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 24th Street, remained in place.

[17] In 1937, four buildings on Madison Avenue between 24th and 25th Street, ranging in height from 12 to 20 stories, were demolished to make way for the second phase of construction: the northwestern portion of the 28-story structure.

[19] LeBrun's and Waid's northern annexes were demolished in 1946 to make way for the third and final stage of the North Building.

[21] From 1994 to 1997, the building's interior was demolished and rebuilt by Haines Lundberg Waehler and the exterior was renovated at a cost of $300 million.

The renovation entailed reducing the size of the building's core to provide additional office space.

Cortesía de 90Grados Arquitectura-Renderings assembled all the available data and graphic information about the building's intended design.

[23] As a result of these setbacks, mandated under the 1916 Zoning Resolution, the architects maximized the usable interior space[16] The building initially contained 30 elevators, enough to serve the originally-planned 100 floors.

[24] The building is finished on the outside with Alabama limestone and marble detailing, covering an interior steel frame.

[25] In addition, there are paired arched openings on Madison Avenue, which are decorated with floral-patterned stone screens.

[25] The other corridors contain terrazzo floors, plaster ceilings with stepped moldings, and marble paneling.

[25] Corbett and Waid described how the building had "the latest ideas in ventilation, air conditioning, sound deadening, artificial lighting, intercommunicating pneumatic tubes, telephones, call bells, unit operating clock systems [and] special elevator and escalator installations".

[16] The offices are located on the outer edges of each floor, near the windows, and are generally open plan spaces with few private rooms in order to accommodate the large numbers of workers at the company.

They were intended to "bring to the employees a feeling of cessation from their work through the contemplation of artistic and amusing masterpieces.