SkyscraperPage Forum - NEW YORK | Chrysler Building | 1,046' Pinnacle / 925' Roof | 77 FLOORS

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- - NEW YORK | Chrysler Building | 1,046' Pinnacle / 925' Roof | 77 FLOORS | 1930 (https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=143716)

Quote:

Originally Posted by The North One (Post 4855798)

That lobby is extremely depressing.

It was depressing, because the guards kicked me out before I could take any pictures or take a good look around.

:(

Quote:

Originally Posted by nycdagreatest (Post 4871724)

astikhin

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4055/...0bb4daf9_b.jpg

Kings of 42nd Street.

Is that bright light shining downward in the middle of the photo the light for grand central?

^^^Whoa, I dont think I have ever seen that straight on angle before, where is that from? It looks like the straight on view of the empire state building, with downtown in the background, Awesome!!!

The above shots look like they were taken from the Citigroup Building.

Quote:

Originally Posted by J_M_Tungsten (Post 4904951)

Is that bright light shining downward in the middle of the photo the light for grand central?

That appears to be from the Verizon Buildng located across from Bryant Park.

Perhaps, the best architectual tower in NYC, but never understood why it isn't open to the public or why an observation deck was never opened.

my favorite building in NY

Quote:

Originally Posted by NYC4Life (Post 4907585)

That appears to be from the Verizon Buildng located across from Bryant Park.

The light from the Verizon shines in a different direction, so I think it's for Grand Central.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NYC4Life (Post 4970604)

Perhaps, the best architectual tower in NYC, but never understood why it isn't open to the public or why an observation deck was never opened.

Apparently there was an observatory on the 71rst floor when the building first opened but it closed for some reason after only a few years:

http://gothamist.com/upload/2010/05/observationroom.jpg
[URL="http://gothamist.com/2010/05/28/flashback_chrysler_building.php?gallery0Pic=3#gallery"]http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...26tbs%3Disch:1

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There was also the private Cloud Club on floors 66-68 but it closed in '79:

http://gothamist.com/upload/2010/05/...10building.jpg
http://gothamist.com/2010/05/28/flas...0Pic=4#gallery

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The upper three floors are now leased out to private commercial tenants. i think there may have been a dentists's office up there at one time. From what I've read, there isn't much of anything left today from the original interiors:

http://www.pbase.com/nyatk/image/55781137/large.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/nyatk/image/55781137/large.jpg

^ classic

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/ny...l?ref=nyregion

Tall Towers and Sharp Razors

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...6FYI-popup.jpg

By MICHAEL POLLAK
September 24, 2010

Quote:

Q. For exactly how long was 40 Wall Street the tallest building in the world? Six days? Six hours? Please tell.

A. It probably never was. What is indisputable is that in the fall of 1929, a battle was being waged about 900 feet above the street between the architect William Van Alen, erecting the Chrysler Building (right) at Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street, and Van Alen’s former partner, H. Craig Severance, who, with Yasuo Matsui, was completing a skyscraper at 40 Wall Street for the Bank of Manhattan and others.

Both buildings were projected to top the 1913 Woolworth Building, at 792 feet the world’s tallest. The Chrysler was projected at 808 feet, and in April 1929, a revised projection put 40 Wall Street at 840 feet.

Both estimates were low. Each side made late changes to top the other. Severance got a permit for a huge lantern and a flagpole at the top of 40 Wall Street, raising the height to 925 feet. But Van Alen secretly built a 175-foot spire inside the Chrysler Building, making the tower 1,048 feet high when it was hoisted.

Because of builder secrecy, the day-to-day progress of the towers that fall was not recorded. The Chrysler passed the Woolworth in height first, in October. The 40 Wall Street tower passed the Woolworth the third week of October, according to “Higher: A Historic Race to the Sky and the Making of a City,” by Neal Bascomb (2003).

But a photograph of the Chrysler Building on Oct. 23, in “The Chrysler Building: Creating a New York Icon, Day by Day,” by David Stravitz (2002), shows the winning spire already partly in place, as the builders waited for the weather to improve before hoisting it all the way up. In a Nov. 1 photograph, the Chrysler appears to be at its full height. So it appears that 40 Wall Street never quite took the lead.

John Tauranac, author of a history of the Empire State Building (which exceeded them both in 1931), concluded in an e-mail: “I think that if the Bank of Manhattan Building ever had been the tallest building, they would have had bragging rights, and if they did, I certainly never heard them.”

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