The Metropolitan Life Clock Tower on the eastern shore of Madison Square Park took the crown of tallest building in the world in 1909. It would wear it until 1913 when the Woolworth Building snatched it away. The lessened Met Life Clock Tower had other bragging rights left, though. Most obviously, it stands as a more than loving nod to the famous and famously rebuilt Bell Tower in Venice, erected in its recognizable form in the Renaissance of the 1500s, damaged many times and the last major rebuild after an utter collapse at the beginning of the 20th Century.
And The Met Life Tower was not the only building to turn to Venice for inspiration. Just feast your eyes.
Early in the game, in the 1600s, the Slovenian town of Piran and the Croatian town of Rovinj gave us very true likenesses.
From there the design fanned out across the globe. Seattle has one.
Toronto has one.
The Brisbane City Hall in Australia, the Town Hall in Kiel Germany,
the Daniels & Fisher Tower in Denver, the Campanile in Port Elizabeth- South Africa,
Sather Tower at the University of California, Berkely,
the right-hand bell-tower of St. John Gualbert in Johnstown, Pennsylvania,
even another one in NYC at 14 Wall Street. 
But a not so secret secret. The Venetians themselves stole the design from the 12th Century Bell Tower at Forli! Still, it is the Campanile in Venice that delights the most. The bulk is a simple shaft with brick work that gives the building a fluted appearance. The bells are housed in a kind of majestic Venetian loggia topped with a cube two of its faces graced with the winged lion, symbol of Venice, and two others with Lady Justice, the female personification of the Queen of the Adriatic. A slender pyramid arises out of that and the Angel Gabriel perches above it all welcoming the world with his horn.
It is in all the copies that one appreciates the height of proportion achieved in Venice, to the extent that I’ve always been a little disappointed at our best effort in the arena. The Met Life Tower always looked a little bulky to me.
Turns out? Take a closer look. The original building had a slenderer column of a rise.
Look at the photo on the right, taken in 1911, particularly where the loggia section begins. You can see how much the bottom of the loggia is protruding much farther than it seems to today.
In 1960, the tower was “fattened up” to give it more redundancy and exude more power as a corporate symbol. Perhaps that was effective. But the first version of the building was better aesthetically, and historically, truer as it was to its parent a world away.
Finally, let's take a closer look at the top. It’s hard to get up there. And, surprise, it literally gave itself a crown for tallest building in the world it was those four years over a hundred years ago.
