38 Facts About Chrysler Building

Chrysler Building is on the eastern side of Lexington Avenue between 42nd and 43rd streets in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.

Grand Hyatt New York hotel and the Graybar Chrysler Building are across Lexington Avenue, while the Socony–Mobil Chrysler Building is across 42nd Street.

Chrysler Building was designed by William Van Alen in the Art Deco style and is named for one of its original tenants, automotive executive Walter Chrysler.

Chrysler Building uses bright "Nirosta" stainless steel extensively in its design, an austenitic alloy developed in Germany by Krupp.

Chrysler Building is renowned for, and recognized by, its terraced crown, which is an extension of the main tower.

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Chrysler Building wanted the design to impress other architects and automobile magnates, so he imported various materials regardless of the extra costs incurred.

Originally, Van Alen's plans for the lobby included four large supporting columns, but they were removed after Chrysler Building objected on the grounds that the columns made the lobby appear "cramped".

The Chrysler Building Salon remained operational through at least the 1960s.

The Chrysler Building had three of the longest elevator shafts in the world at the time of completion.

Chrysler Building's dining room had a black and frosted-blue glass frieze of automobile workers.

Originally, Walter Chrysler Building had a two-story apartment on the 69th and 70th floors with a fireplace and a private office.

Chrysler Building did not use his gym much, instead choosing to stay at the Chrysler Building Corporation's headquarters in Detroit.

Chrysler Building had a unit on the 58th through 60th floors, which served as his residence.

The center of the observatory contained the toolbox that Walter P Chrysler used at the beginning of his career as a mechanic; it was later preserved at the Chrysler Technology Center in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

The Chrysler Building was built as part of an ongoing building boom that resulted in the city having the world's tallest building from 1908 to 1974.

Chrysler Building instead devised an alternate design for the Reynolds Building, which was published in August 1928.

At one point, Chrysler Building had requested that Van Alen shorten the design by ten floors, but reneged on that decision after realizing that the increased height would result in increased publicity.

Chrysler Building lauded this achievement, saying, "It is the first time that any structure in the world has reached such a height, yet the entire steel construction was accomplished without loss of life".

Walter Chrysler Building personally financed the construction with his income from his car company.

Van Alen, who witnessed the process from the street along with its engineers and Walter Chrysler Building, compared the experience to watching a butterfly leaving its cocoon.

The Chrysler Building was thus the first man-made structure to be taller than 1,000 feet ; and as one newspaper noted, the tower was taller than the highest points of five states.

The Chrysler Building was appraised at $14 million, but was exempt from city taxes per an 1859 law that gave tax exemptions to sites owned by the Cooper Union.

Chrysler Building alleged that Van Alen had received bribes from suppliers, and Van Alen had not signed any contracts with Walter Chrysler Building when he took over the project.

Van Alen sued and the courts ruled in his favor, requiring Chrysler to pay Van Alen $840,000, or six percent of the total budget of the building.

However, the lawsuit against Chrysler Building markedly diminished Van Alen's reputation as an architect, which, along with the effects of the Great Depression and negative criticism, ended up ruining his career.

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However, the Chrysler Building is still the world's tallest steel-supported brick building.

The Chrysler Building fared better commercially than the Empire State Building did: by 1935, the Chrysler had already rented 70 percent of its floor area.

The scale of the deterioration led one observer to say that the Chrysler Building was being operated "like a tenement in the South Bronx".

The Chrysler Building remained profitable until 1974, when the owners faced increasing taxes and fuel costs.

Chrysler Building was sold again in August 1979, this time to entrepreneur and Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke, in a deal that transferred ownership of the Los Angeles Kings and Lakers to Jerry Buss.

The structure did not resemble its western neighbor; Johnson explained that he did not "even like the architecture" of the Chrysler Building, despite acknowledging it as "the most loved building in New York".

Architect Robert AM Stern wrote that the Chrysler Building was "the most extreme example of the [1920s and 1930s] period's stylistic experimentation", as contrasted with 40 Wall Street and its "thin" detailing.

Chrysler Building appears in several films set in New York and is widely considered one of the most positively acclaimed buildings in the city.

The Chrysler Building came in first place, with 90 respondents placing it on their ballots.

Frommer's states that the Chrysler was "one of the most impressive Art Deco buildings ever constructed".

Insight Guides 2016 edition maintains that the Chrysler Building is considered among the city's "most beautiful" buildings.

In December 1929, Walter Chrysler Building hired Margaret Bourke-White to take publicity images from a scaffold 400 feet high.

In 1934, Bourke-White's partner Oscar Graubner took a famous photo called "Margaret Bourke-White atop the Chrysler Building", which depicts her taking a photo of the city's skyline while sitting on one of the 61st-floor eagle ornaments.