Description of the attraction
The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco-style Manhattan skyscraper. The architectural merit of the building is such that it is recognized as one of the most beautiful in New York and the United States. It is also the tallest brick building in the world.
The magnificent skyscraper was born at the behest of one of the legendary American managers, Walter Chrysler. Having started his career as a train driver apprentice, he soon became interested in cars. The Buick company saw in him a promising manager and was not deceived - Chrysler proved to be brilliant. In 1925, he founded his own corporation "Chrysler" and began producing cars that were revolutionary for their time - with high compression engines, oil and air filters.
In the late 1920s, Walter Chrysler decided to build the tallest building in the world for his corporation. The project was developed by William van Alen, for whom the skyscraper turned out to be the crown of his career: at the end of construction, the architect billed Chrysler for services - 6 percent of the estimate (the standard rates of the time), but Chrysler considered it a lot. Van Alen won the trial, but did not receive new orders, and soon the Great Depression struck, and he had to forget about architecture.
The Chrysler Building was being built at a breakneck pace, four stories a week. To fasten the steel frame, 400,000 rivets were used, and almost four million bricks were manually laid into the walls. However, nearby, at 40 Wall Street, the Bank of Manhattan building was being built, 283 meters high, and Chrysler could lose the battle for height. But van Alen used a secret weapon: he obtained permission to put a 38-meter spire on the building so that his brainchild would reach a height of 319 meters. In deep secrecy, the structure was mounted inside a skyscraper. Van Allen watched him rise from the corner of Fifth Avenue, trembling with fear: the people on the street did not know what was happening over their heads. But the editing was successful and took only 90 minutes. Chrysler Building won the race to become the world's tallest building.
The celebration was short-lived: eleven months later, the prize passed to the 102-story Empire State Building. Nevertheless, the Chrysler Building today remains one of the tallest buildings in the world and certainly one of the most stylish. Glass and polished steel make it visually light, as if floating in the air. The Krupp stainless steel tapered crown shines in any weather. On the sixty-first floor, giant eagles look out from the corners of the building. At the thirty-first floor, the skyscraper is adorned with glittering fenders, the kind used on the radiator caps of the 1929 Chryslers.
