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Photo. Workers remove the 15-foot-high Pan Am sign at 200 Park
Avenue in New York. A Manhattan fixture since 1963, the
sign was replaced by a Met Life logo reflecting the change
in ownership. Associated Press
Alterations reflect ebb, flow of commerce in city
NEW YORK _ "PanAmMetLife200ParkAve, please!"
That's roughly what Bill Manfredi has mumbled to cabbies since the office building where he works changed its name from Pan Am to Met Life.
It's just one more survival skill in a city where building names seem to change as fast as traffic lights, a city with two General Electric buildings, two AT&T buildings, and now, two Metropolitan Life buildings.
Met Life No. 1, the corporate headquarters, is a 100-year-old skyscraper overlooking Madison Square.
Met Life No. 2, which used to be known as the Pan Am Building and is sometimes called 200 Park, is about a mile up Park Avenue. Met Life has owned the building since 1981, but decided last year there was no point to having a building named after an airline that no longer flies.
So the huge Pan Am signs and logos came down, huge new MetLife signs and logos went up, and in January the latter were lit _ causing an epidemic of double takes up and down Park Avenue.
And confusing some travelers.
"Get...