The Chrysler Building is a skyscraper in New York City that was
completed in 1930 and is one of the landmarks of the metropolis.
It is located at 405 Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street in Midtown
Manhattan on property owned by the private college Cooper Union.
The Chrysler Building is 319 meters high, making it the 12th
tallest building in New York City together with the New York
Times Tower, which was built in 2007. It ranks 20th among the
tallest buildings in the United States (as of 2022).
The
client was Walter Percy Chrysler, who originally had it built
for the Chrysler Corporation between 1928 and 1930. Architect
William Van Alen was responsible for planning the Art Deco
skyscraper. The building is one of the most beautiful
skyscrapers of that era.
Paradoxically, many skyscrapers were built during the Great Depression. On the one hand, this is due to the high phase before the crisis: the gross national product of the USA had risen by 50% within eight years after the First World War, and this economic boom led to numerous new buildings and plans for commercial buildings. On the other hand, the builders benefited from the radically reduced wages after the stock market crash in 1929 during the subsequent execution during the crisis. They were able to hire far more workers than planned for the same money. Union power was broken, wages were low, workers were plentiful. Under normal circumstances, a building of this size could not have been erected in such a short construction period. An average of four floors were built per week, a record for the time. (Similar effects could also be observed later: The tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, was completed in 2010, at the time of the financial crisis. However, it was planned before the economic downturn.)
Although the building was designed and built specifically for
automaker Chrysler, the company neither paid for its construction nor
ever owned it. Walter P. Chrysler decided to pay for it privately so
that he could pass it on to his children.
The foundation stone
for the building was laid on September 19, 1928. On May 27, 1930, it was
ceremoniously inaugurated. At 319 meters, it was the tallest building in
the world when it opened and also the first to break the 1,000-foot
(305-meter) mark. It measures 282 meters to the roof; however, since the
metal tip is part of the basic structure of the building, it is included
in the official height.
During construction, there had been a
race with the tower of the Bank of Manhattan (today 40 Wall Street or
The Trump Building) until the last few days, which the Chrysler Building
won. In 1930, the architect William Van Alen had kept the 56 meter high
peak secret until the last moment, so that the competitor, the Bank of
Manhattan, whose building had just reached 283 meters, could no longer
react. The individual components of this metal tip were initially stored
and pre-assembled in the building's heating shaft. Then the huge steel
plates were secretly brought to the 65th floor, screwed together there
and then placed in one piece with a slewing crane on the building, which
reached a height of 319 meters and clearly outperformed the competition.
This endeavor took less than 1½ hours. This steel structure, called
"vortex" (lat. vortex, rotation), is purely decorative, weighs 30 tons
and is an example of Art Deco.
However, the Chrysler Building
only briefly remained the tallest building in the world. The Empire
State Building was completed in Midtown Manhattan in 1931 with a height
of 381 meters and was thus significantly higher than all other
buildings. However, the Chrysler Building remained the second tallest
skyscraper in the world until 1969 and was one of the "top ten" tallest
buildings in the world until the late 1990s.
On the 67th floor there was a restaurant-bar, the so-called Cloud
Club, which was particularly well-known during Prohibition, in the
former 'apartment' of company founder Walter P. Chrysler.
Only
the lobby of the Chrysler Building is open to the public (including its
own subway access, but only on weekdays). To get to the elevators, which
are still in the Art Deco style, you need a special pass or an
appointment with one of the companies based there.
After the
death of Walter P. Chrysler in 1940, the building came to the W.P
Chrysler Building Corporation, which sold it together with the heir
family in 1953 for $18 million to real estate agent William Zeckendorf.
In 1960, real estate investors Sol Goldman and Alex DiLorenzo purchased
the building with financing from Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance
Company (MassMutual). Which in turn took over the shares for 35 million
US dollars in 1975. In December 1976, the skyscraper was declared a
National Historic Landmark.
By 1979, the building had been
completely renovated at a cost of around $23 million. In September 1979
it was taken over by Jack Kent Cooke. After Cooke's death in 1997, real
estate company Tishman Speyer Properties along with The Travelers
Companies, Inc. (part of Citigroup from 1998) took over the building for
an estimated sum of $210-250 million. In 2001, the German investment
company TMW Immobilien AG from Munich took over around 75 percent of the
building via its US subsidiary for around 390 million US dollars. The
largest shareholders of TMW were the Ergo Trust of the Ergo Group, the
provincial insurance and three German private banks.
Between
autumn 2001 and July 2008, the building was owned by GVP Gesellschaft
für Vertriebs- und Produktmanagement AG (today's Ideas Capital Financial
Service AG) from Düsseldorf, which belongs to the Ergo Group and set up
a closed-end real estate fund (ProVictor) for this purpose. She sold a
90 percent stake in the building on July 9, 2008 to the sovereign wealth
fund Abu Dhabi Investment Council (Mubadala) for US$800 million (€713
million).
According to Reuters information, the Chrysler
Building, which was in need of renovation, was sold in March 2019 for
just 150 million US dollars to a company that is equally owned by the
Austrian Signa Holding and the American-German company RFR Group of the
German-born real estate investors Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs .
The Chrysler Corporation moved into the building in 1930 as its
anchor tenant and used the premises as departmental headquarters until
the 1950s. Other early tenants were Time and Texaco. Needing more office
space, Time moved to Rockefeller Center in 1937. Texaco moved to
Purchase, New York, in 1967 because the company wanted to move jobs to a
suburban environment.
Current occupants of the building include:
Regus, Creative Artists Agency, Blank Rome, Clyde & Co, InterMedia
Partners, Troutman Sanders Reprieve and YES Network.
The building was constructed in the Art Deco style. The building
features stainless steel trim reminiscent of gargoyles, winged
helmet-like figures inspired by 1926 Chrysler hood ornaments, and eagle
heads - the heraldic animal of the United States. In addition,
decorative elements in the form of Chrysler hoods and tile friezes in
the form of Chrysler hubcaps were used as ornaments on the facade on the
31st floor. The dome of the building is also made of stainless steel.
The top is formed by a pyramid-like tapering tower crown made of tiles
and nickel plates, from which a 27-tonne nickel steel needle protrudes.
The lighting, so distinctive to the New York skyline, is provided by
inconspicuous fluorescent lamps attached to the window frames. The
windows are designed as sliding windows; they are probably still
originals and can be opened on all floors.
When it was completed in 1930, the Chrysler Building was the tallest
building on earth at 319 meters, surpassing the 283 meter Bank of
Manhattan Company Building (now 40 Wall Street). It was also the first
building to surpass the Eiffel Tower, which is not counted as a
building, but only as a building, due to the scarcity of usable space.
But just a year after its completion, in May 1931, it was overtaken by
the Empire State Building by 62 meters (381 meters high). From then on
it was the second tallest building in the world until the completion of
the 344 meter high John Hancock Center in Chicago in 1969.
Within
New York, it was surpassed again in 1972 and 1973 by the World Trade
Center towers (417 meters and 415 meters). After its destruction in
2001, it temporarily became the second tallest building in New York
City, until the 366 meter high Bank of America Tower was completed in
2009 (the New York Times Tower had already reached the same height as
the Chrysler Building in 2007). Since 2014, the 432 Park Avenue building
has also been taller. The Chrysler Building, together with the New York
Times Tower, now ranks only tenth among the tallest buildings in New
York. Also, taking into account its antenna, completed in 2003, the
Conde Nast Building is taller than the Chrysler Building. Since the
Eiffel Tower has had a television and radio tower antenna, it has again
been taller than the Chrysler Building (the Eiffel Tower currently
measures 330 meters).
Similar buildings
Over time, a number of
skyscrapers have been built in the USA and around the world, the
planning and design of which was based on the Chrysler Building. This is
especially true at the top of the building. In this regard, buildings
such as One Liberty Place in Philadelphia or the Al Kazim Towers in
Dubai are particularly well known, although both are lower than the
Chrysler Building. The New York-New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas
also cites the Chrysler Building, among others.
Protective
designation
The building was listed on the National Register of
Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark in 1976 and was
designated a New York City Landmark by the Landmarks Preservation
Commission in 1978.