27 May: The Chrysler Building

On this date in 1930 the Chrysler Building first opened to the public. Here are 10 things you might not know about it.

1. The address of the Chrysler Building is 405 Lexington Avenue, Manhattan, New York City. It is located at the intersection of Lexington Avenue with East ^42nd Street.
2. The Chrysler Building is 319 meters (1047 ft) tall and has 77 floors.
3. It was designed in an Art Deco style by William Van Alen. The spire was designed to resemble the radiator grille of a Chrysler car and the eagle gargoyles were inspired by the hood ornaments on the cars.
4. The building is not named after the Chrysler car company, although its headquarters was based there for a couple of decades. Rather it was named after Walter Chrysler, who used his own money to pay for it rather than company funds.
5. It was almost called the Reynolds Building, as it was originally the brainchild of one William Reynolds, best known for developing the Dreamland amusement park on Coney Island. When his amusement park burned to the ground in 1911, Reynolds set out on a new project – to build the tallest building in the world. It was he who first rented the land the building stands on and engaged Van Alen as the architect. However, he ran out of money a month after construction began. That was when Walter Chrysler stepped in and bought the project.
6. It was the tallest building in the world but only for a few months. At the time the Chrysler Building was being planned and built with the aim of being tallest, John Raskob, the founder of another car company, General Motors, had also set out to build the tallest building in New York. Chrysler, therefore, kept the height of his building under wraps so Raskob’s architects couldn’t ensure they built higher. Chrysler even hid a rod in the spire so that he could make his building even taller at the very last minute. Erection of the spire took just 90 minutes. Once the Chrysler Building was complete, however, Raskob and his people did some calculations and worked out that they could add some extra storeys to their building, so in due course, the Empire State Building became the tallest building in New York. In 2019 it was the 11^th tallest building in New York.
7. The building has about four million bricks and 400,000 rivets. There are 3,862 windows. The spire, contrary to a popular urban myth, is not made from Chrysler hubcaps.
8. There was originally an observation deck on the 71^st floor, but it closed in 1945 and turned into offices. This was because people started going to the observation deck in the Empire State Building instead, because not only was it taller but offered better views from an open air deck rather than through small windows.
9. There also used to be an exclusive club called the Cloud Club, where New York’s elite could get a sneaky drink during prohibition. It existed until the 1970s, when it too closed and was turned into office space.
10. Its owners at time of writing are RFR Holding, a real estate company who bought it in 2019 for $150 million. While it is currently purely an office building, RFR Holding are considering turning it into a hotel.

MY LATEST BOOK!

Killing Me Softly

Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.

Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena. 

Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

E-book