The Chrysler Building is iconic to New York City. In fact, it is one of the biggest examples of Art Deco** architecture in the United States. In 2005 it was voted by New York’s Skyscraper Museum as New Yorkers’ favorite tower in the City. The building itself is 77 floors and 319.5m (1048 feet) high. It is built with 29961 tons of steel, 3,826,000 bricks and has near 5000 windows. The cost to build this magnificent structure in in the late 1920’s was $20,000,000. The decorative features of the building were designed after the ornamental features on Chrysler cars. The eagles on the corners of the 21st floor were taken from the eagle hood ornaments on the 1929 Chrysler model car.
If you have never seen the Chrysler Building read this wonderful description of just the 3 story high lobby as so eloquently put at nyc-architecture.com…
“The three stories high, upwards tapering entrance lobby has a triangular form, with entrances from three sides, Lexington Avenue, 42nd and 43rd Streets. The lobby is lavishly decorated with Red Moroccan marble walls, sienna-coloured floor and onyx, blue marble and steel in Art Deco compositions. The ceiling murals, painted by Edward Trumbull, praise the modern-day technical progress — and of course the building itself and its builders at work. The lobby was refurbished in 1978 by JCS Design Assocs. and Joseph Pell Lombardi.”
So how are you on your Chrysler Building trivia? Next time it comes up in conversation here is an interesting fact. The 27-ton spire on top of the building took just 90 minutes to erect and the final height of the building was kept secret until the end. Chrysler was in a race to build the tallest building in the city. When it looked like the Bank of Manhattan was going to win, Chrysler had the spire built in secret inside the building and then had the spire added to the Chrysler Building. It held the record as the tallest building in the world for 11 months until the Empire State Building took the title. The Empire State Building was being built by Chryslers competition John Raskob of general motors. Raskob’s architects did some figuring and decided to make the Empire State Building 85 stories tall (eight stories taller than the Chrysler Building.) It was then that the Chrysler Building was bumped to the second-tallest building in the city. Special thanks to www.mentalfloss.com and www.jazzhostels.com for this bit of trivia!
Next time you’re in the area make sure to stop and look at this marvel.
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