Chrysler Building

The Chrysler Building is in New York City, in the United States.

It is very, very tall. Its top is covered in shiny steel. The steel is shaped like rows of arches with pointy windows.

The Chrysler Building stands at the corner of Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan, New York City. It was built for Walter P. Chrysler, the head of a big car company, the Chrysler Corporation.

The building has 77 stories and reaches 1,046 feet, or about 319 meters, with its spire. When it was finished in 1930 it was the tallest building in the world, but it held that title for only a short time. Its crown of shining steel arches, with triangle-shaped windows, is, the city's landmarks commission says, its most striking and original part.

The building stands at 405 Lexington Avenue, on land at Lexington and 42nd Street then owned by the Cooper Union. New York's Landmarks Preservation Commission, which designated it a landmark on September 12, 1978, says it embodies the romantic essence of the New York City skyscraper.

It was built in 1928–1930 for Walter P. Chrysler of the Chrysler Corporation and "dedicated to world commerce and industry." At 1,046 feet, it was the tallest building in the world when completed in 1930, until the Empire State Building surpassed it. As a freestanding tower occupying about half a block, it can be seen from all four sides.

Look for steel eagle heads near the top!

Lower down are giant steel shapes like the caps on old car radiators. There are even pictures of race cars in the bricks.

The decorations remind people of Chrysler cars. At the 31st floor, giant steel ornaments shaped like the radiator caps of Chrysler cars stand at the corners, and a band of brick shows racing cars with shiny steel hubcaps. Higher up, at a setback at the 59th story, steel gargoyles shaped like eagles' heads stick out.

Above them, rows of curved steel arches with triangular windows form the crown, topped by the needle-sharp spire. In the photo, you can see the arches up close, with the Queensboro Bridge behind.

At the 31st floor the corners extend outward, crowned by Nirosta radiator caps about 15 feet across, an extension made to stop the tower looking wider at the top than at the base; a gray-and-white brick frieze shows stylized racing cars with polished steel hubcaps. Nine-foot steel pineapples mark the corners at the 24th floor.

The setback above the 59th story carries eagle-head gargoyles of Nirosta steel. Over them rise the steel arches set with triangular windows that form the dome, crowned by the spire; the commission calls the polished dome and spire the building's most striking and original parts. The photo, taken from the Empire State Building's observatory according to its record, shows the arches with the Queensboro Bridge behind.

The Chrysler Building was built for offices.

It was built with very fast elevators. Its shiny top is its most special part.

The Chrysler Building was built as an office tower, and it had new ideas for its time. Its office walls were made of steel sections that could be moved to change the rooms, and wires for telephones ran under the floors. Chrysler wanted elevators that could travel 1,000 feet a minute, faster than city rules then allowed.

In 1978 New York City made the building an official landmark.

The commission's report lists innovations for 1930: soundproof steel office partitions in interchangeable sections, under-floor ducts for telephone and electric wiring, and elevators built at Chrysler's insistence for 1,000 feet per minute, when city codes allowed 700, in some of the longest continuous elevator shafts in the world at the time.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building and its site a landmark on September 12, 1978, after hearings that year. The building's records give two completion dates: considered finished in August 1930, but recorded by the Manhattan Building Department as February 19, 1932.