Chrysler Building

The Art Deco skyscraper that won the race for the world’s tallest building with a secret spire

Local name: Chrysler Building

Collection: New York · USA · Open in OpenStreetMap

The steel crown with triangular windows and the spire · Carol M. Highsmith, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

The story

Before you is the Chrysler Building, an Art Deco skyscraper. The tower was first planned here by William H. Reynolds, a former state senator, and it was he who hired the architect William Van Alen. In October 1928 the project was taken over by Walter P. Chrysler, head of the automobile company. He wrote that he built it so that his sons would have something to be responsible for. At that very time a race was on for the title of the tallest building in the world. The rival was the bank at 40 Wall Street. It was being built by H. Craig Severance, Van Alen’s former partner. Severance thought the Chrysler Building would rise to 925 feet, and he added a flagpole to his tower to beat it. But Van Alen secretly assembled a 185-foot steel spire inside the building. In November 1929 the spire was hoisted up by a derrick and fixed to the top. The building reached 1,046 feet and became the tallest in the world, but not for long: soon the Empire State Building overtook it. There are seventy-seven stories. Look at the decorations. At the corners of the thirty-first floor are huge steel radiator caps, like those on the hoods of Chrysler cars, and right there is a band of brick automobiles with shiny hubcaps. Higher still are steel eagle heads. The steel is a special stainless kind called Nirosta. According to the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, it was made in America for the first time especially for this building. The formal opening was on the twenty-seventh of May 1930. On the lobby ceiling is Edward Trumbull’s huge mural, Transport and Human Endeavor.

Visiting

405 Lexington Avenue, at the corner of 42nd Street; on the 42nd Street side a staircase leads to the Grand Central–42nd Street subway station. It is an office building, and tourists are not allowed upstairs. In the past only the lobby was open to the public; the building changed hands in 2024–2026, so ask on site whether the lobby is open now. The spire is easy to see from 42nd Street.