Big Apple History . Building the Big Apple . Higher and Higher


	The Chrysler Building under construction, c. 1930

The battle of the buildings in Manhattan was about to begin. For most of the 1920s, the tallest building in New York City, at almost 800 feet tall, was the Woolworth Building. In April of 1929, the Bank of Manhattan Company began construction of what they hoped would be the tallest skyscraper in the world. At the same time, Walter P. Chrysler, a car-company-owning millionaire, announced plans to build a new Chrysler headquarters that would rule the sky. This battle was further fueled by the fact that the architect of the planned Chrysler Building, William Van Alen, was the ex-partner of the architect of the Bank of Manhattan Building, H. Craig Severance.

In April, 1930, the Bank of Manhattan Building opened, and Severance thought he was the winner. His building was 925 feet tall! However, four months later, Van Alen secretly attached a 185-foot metal spike on top of HIS masterpiece. Towering 1,046 feet over the sidewalk, the Chrysler Building -- a dazzling, Art Deco-style tower meant to resemble a car, complete with hubcap-like ornaments near the top -- was the victor.

The Chrysler Building may have won the battle but it did not win the war. Less than a year later, the Empire State Building was completed, standing 1,250 feet tall!

Illustration: Courtesy of the Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.