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The Chrysler building is located on the East side of Manhattan and situated on the intersection of 42nd and Lexington Avenue in New York. Standing 1,046 feet high this piece of architecture is cherished by many New Yorker's as a perfect example of New York during the 1920's.
First belonging to the William H. Reynolds who contracted William Van Alen to design the building, William H. Reynolds later sold the building to Walter P. Chrysler. Though it is still referred to as the Chrysler building, it now owned by two real estate companies who co-own the building.
William H. Reynolds had previously been responsible for Dreamland. This was one of the three amusement parks in Coney Island. Both Dreamland and the Chrysler were built with elegant architecture.
The Chrysler building happed to be built during the skyscraper wars of the 1920's. Architects and contractors were battling to construct the tallest buildings in the least amount of time. Towards the finishing of the Chrysler building, it was clear that it would stand even with another building built by H. Craig Severance called 40 Wall Street. In an effort to outdo his competitor, Severance added two more feet to his architecture, making it taller than the Chrysler building.
What Severance didn't know was that Van Alen had already been constructing a spire which was being built inside of the building. In secret, he had already received permission to build the spire and was doing so discreetly. When the spire was placed, according the architecture, the Chrysler building was now the tallest building and structure in the entire world.
The Chrysler building, with its art deco architecture, kept this title for about a year before being taken out by the Empire State Building. However, Van Alen also suffered a devastating blow when Chrysler refused to pay him for his work on the famous architecture. |