Chrysler Building

The Chrysler Building is an iconic Art Deco skyscraper in New York City, located on the east side of Manhattan at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Standing 1,047 feet (319 meters) high, it was briefly the world's tallest building before it was overtaken by the Empire State Building in 1931. It is now the second tallest building in New York City.

History

The skyscraper, designed by architect William Van Alen, was originally built to house the Chrysler Corporation. The groundbreaking occurred on September 19, 1928. At the time, the builders of New York were engaged in an intense competition to build the world's tallest skyscraper. The Chrysler Building was erected at an average rate of four floors per week, and no workers were killed during construction. Just prior to its completion, the building stood about even with the rival project 40 Wall Street, designed by H. Craig Severance. Severance quickly increased the height of his project by two feet and claimed the title of the world's tallest building (this distinction excluded structures that were not fully habitable, such as the Eiffel Tower).

Van Alen secretly obtained permission to build a spire that was hidden inside the building during construction. The spire, measuring 125 feet (58.4 meters) long and composed of Nirosta stainless steel, was hoisted to the top of the building on October 23, 1929. The added height allowed the Chrysler Building to surpass both 40 Wall Street and the Eiffel Tower as the tallest building and the tallest structure in the world. It was also the first man-made structure to stand taller than 1,000 feet (305 meters). The steel chosen to cap the building was Krupp KA2 "Enduro" Steel. The building opened to the public on May 27, 1930. In less than a year, the Chrysler Building was surpassed in height by the Empire State Building. Van Alen's satisfaction was later muted by Walter Chrysler's refusal to pay his fee.^{[citation needed]}

The building was renovated in 1978 - 1979, during which the entrance hall was constructed in granite, marble and steel. The spire underwent a restoration that was completed in 1995. The building is presently co-owned by TMW Real Estate, with three-quarters of the ownership, and Tishman Speyer Properties, with the remaining one-quarter of ownership.

Architecture

The Chrysler Building is a famous example of Art Deco architecture. The distinctive ornamentation of the building is based on features that were then being used on Chrysler automobiles. The corners of the 61st floors are graced with eagles, replicas of the 1929 Chrysler hood ornaments[1]. On the 31st floors the corner ornamentation are replicas of the 1929 Chrysler radiator caps[2]. The building is constructed of masonry, with a steel frame, and metal cladding.

The lobby is similarly elegant. When the building first opened it contained a public viewing gallery near the top, which a few years later was changed into a restaurant, but neither of these enterprises was able to be financially self sustaining during the Great Depression and the former observation floor became a private dining room called the Cloud Club. The very top stories of the building are narrow with low sloped ceilings, designed mostly for exterior appearance with interiors useful only to hold radio broadcasting and other mechanical and electrical equipment.

There are two sets of lighting in the top spires and decoration. The first are the V-shaped lighting inserts in the steel of the building itself. Added later were groups of floodlights which are on mast arms directed back at the building. This allows the top of the building to be lit in many colors for special occasions. This lighting was installed by electrician Charles Londner and crew during construction.

In more recent years the Chrysler Building has continued to be a favorite among New Yorkers. In the summer of 2005, New York's own Skyscraper Museum asked one hundred architects, builders, critics, engineers, historians, and scholars, among others, to choose their 10 favorites among 25 New York towers. The Chrysler Building came in first place as 90% of them placed the building in their top 10 favorite buildings. [3]

The Chrysler Building´s distinctive profile has inspired similar skyscrapers worldwide, including One Liberty Place in Philadelphia.

The building viewed from street level

View from one of the north-facing triangular windows

Elevator interior with inlaid wood

Illuminination of the building at night

In popular culture

• In a Saturday Night Live sketch, the Coneheads used the Chrysler Building as a spacecraft in order to return to their home planet of Remulak.
• In the movie Armageddon, a chunk of the asteroid hits the Chrysler Building, severing its upper quarter and causing it to crash down on the streets.
• Larry Cohen's low budget classic movie Q: The Winged Serpent (1982) has the titular dragon-beast nesting just below the spire of the Chrysler Building, from where it launches its campaign of terror on New York City, staying invisible to the citizens by "flying against the sun".
• The movie Big features a scene in which Tom Hanks' character fiddles with a Transformer-like toy based on the Chrysler Building.
• In Spider-Man: The Animated Series, one of the main villains, Kingpin, runs his crime syndicate from the Chrysler Building. The upper floors had launch and landing facilities for VTOL-capable aircraft. Also, in the first movie's video game, the fight with Vulture takes place on the Chrysler Building.
• In the music video for "This is a Song for the Lonely" by Cher, the Chrysler Building is shown, being built, though mainly just the upper quarter.
• In the movie Godzilla two Apache helicopters accidentally blow off about half of the building during a hectic chase through Midtown.
• In the video game Parasite Eve, the building is a site of a thorough hostile creature infestation. The player must climb all 77 floors and encounter enemies on each floor. The secret "true" boss is on the 77th floor.
• Artist Matthew Barney narrates the construction of the Chrysler Building (which is itself a character) in the art film Cremaster 3.
• In Annie, during the "Hard-Knock Life" number, Molly says, imitating Miss Hannigan, "You'll stay up till this dump shines like the top of the Chrysler Building!"
• The Chrysler Building was also featured in the movie Deep Impact, where the wall of water surrounds the skyscraper. You can also see people on the 62nd floor observation deck fleeing to the other side of the building to "escape" the wall of water.
• In the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin creates a machine that can transform people into whatever they wish, an example being "a slug the size of the Chrysler Building".
• In the comic book Zot!, the head of Arthur "Dekko" Dekker replicates the top of the Chrysler Building.
• In various episodes of the Futurama animated series, the Chrysler Building is seen damaged and lying on the ground in the sewer system where there are ruins of old New York.
• In season one of the BRAVO television show Project Runway, designer Jay McCarrol created an evening gown inspired by the Chrysler Building for the Banana Republic challenge.
• In the song "Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago" on the Soul Coughing album Ruby Vroom, a recurring line is "A man drives a plane into the Chrysler Building."
• In the Kurt Vonnegut novel Jailbird, the uppermost room under the spire of the Chrysler Building is the showroom of the American Harp Company.
• In Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Batman terrifies a hoodlum into giving up information by hanging him upside-down and unconscious from the 62nd floor Eagles (in the DC Universe the building or an analog to it is in Gotham City) until the hoodlum awakens and sees where he is. A similar scene has been shown in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated cartoon. [4]
• In the first Doc Savage novel, The Man of Bronze, a would-be assassin attempts to shoot Doc Savage in his 86th floor headquarters from another skyscraper. In his book Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, Philip Jose Farmer deduces that if Doc lives in the Empire State Building, then the assassin's perch must have been in the Chrysler Building, and it is depicted as such in the George Pal/Ron Ely movie Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze. (Despite this, in one scene Doc is shown scanning the city from a secret compartment behind the right "eye" of one of the eight steel eagle-head corner pieces famously located on the 61st floor of the Chrysler Building.)
• The 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die features the Chrysler Building in the opening shot following the gun barrel logo as the camera zooms into the United Nations Headquarters where a British agent ambassador is assassinated during a General Assembly simulation.
• In the Sega video game NiGHTS Into Dreams, the Twin Seeds Tower looks very similar to the Chrysler Building.
• In the movie The Aviator, the Pan Am offices of Juan Trippe are located in the top floors of the Chrysler Building.
• In Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw told Mr. Big that he can't leave New York, because he is the Chrysler Building.
• In the 2005 film The Producers, a man dressed as Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia comments on how his costume looks more like the Chrysler building.
• Book 41 of the Animorphs series reveals an alternate future where the Yeerks have succeeded. The Chrysler Building is covered by a sheath for much of the story, and is later revealed to have been modified to emit a beam at the moon, which would transform the moon into a small orbiting version of the Kandrona (the sun of the Yeerk Homeworld). That future's Jake was a key engineer in the project, and the "normal" Jake attempts to stop the plan.
• In the 1993 graphic novel "City of Light, City of Dark", several aerial views of the Chrysler Building are seen moderately, just before the climax.
• In Robert Redford's oscar nominated film, 'Quiz Show', a tilt shot of the Chrysler building is used in the opening scenes to illustrate the power and prestige of the NBC building, which is filmed a similar way.
• In the first trailer released for Grand Theft Auto IV, which appears to be set in Liberty City (a fictional earth-based city for New York City), a representation of the Chrysler Building is briefly shown.

Quotations

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"Art Deco in France found its American equivalent in the design of the New York skyscrapers of the 1920s. The Chrysler Building...was one of the most accomplished essays in the style."

—John Julius Norwich, in The World Atlas of Architecture

"The design, originally drawn up for building contractor William H. Reynolds, was finally sold to Walter P. Chrysler, who wanted a provocative building which would not merely scrape the sky but positively pierce it. Its 77 floors briefly making it the highest building in the world—at least until the Empire State Building was completed—it became the star of the New York skyline, thanks above all to its crowning peak. In a deliberate strategy of myth generation, Van Alen planned a dramatic moment of revelation: the entire seven-storey pinnacle, complete with special-steel facing, was first assembled inside the building, and then hoisted into position through the roof opening and anchored on top in just one and a half hours. All of a sudden it was there—a sensational fait accompli."

—Peter Gossel and Gabriele Leuthauser, in Architecture in the Twentieth Century

"One of the first uses of stainless steel over a large exposed building surface. The decorative treatment of the masonry walls below changes with every set-back and includes story-high basket-weave designs, radiator-cap gargoyles, and a band of abstract automobiles. The lobby is a modernistic composition of African marble and chrome steel."

—Elliot Willensky and Norval White, in AIA Guide to New York

See also

• Buildings and architecture of New York City
• 50 Tallest buildings in the U.S.
• Tallest buildings in New York City
• World's tallest structures
• World's tallest free standing structure on land
• List of buildings

Sources

• Skyscrapers, Antonino Terranova, White Star Publishers, 2003 (ISBN-8880952307)

Wikipedia information about Chrysler Building This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Chrysler Building". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.