Chrysler Building - New York City, New York, USA
N 40° 45.101 W 073° 58.544
18T E 586465 N 4511696
The gorgeous art deco Chrysler Building in New York City once had a television station and two radio stations transmitting from its top before they moved to the Empire State Building by the 1970s.
Waymark Code: WMVFBF
Location: New York, United States
Date Posted: 04/11/2017
Views: 25
"The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco-style skyscraper located on the East Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue in the Turtle Bay neighborhood. At 1,046 feet (318.9 m), the structure was the world's tallest building for 11 months before it was surpassed by the Empire State Building in 1931.
It is the tallest brick building in the world, with a steel structure. After the destruction of the World Trade Center, it was again the second-tallest building in New York City until December 2007, when the spire was raised onto the 1,200-foot (365.8 m) Bank of America Tower, making the Chrysler building the third tallest building in New York. In addition, The New York Times Building, which opened in 2007, is exactly level with the Chrysler Building in height. Both buildings were then demoted to fourth tallest building in the city, when the under-construction One World Trade Center surpassed their height, and then to fifth position by 432 Park Avenue, which was completed in 2015.
The Chrysler Building is a classic example of Art Deco architecture and considered by many contemporary architects to be one of the finest buildings in New York City. In 2007, it was ranked ninth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects. It was the headquarters of the Chrysler Corporation from 1930 until the mid-1950s. Although the building was built and designed specifically for the car manufacturer, the corporation did not pay for the construction of it and never owned it, as Walter P. Chrysler decided to pay for it himself, so that his children could inherit it.
The Chrysler Building was designed by architect William Van Alen for a project of Walter P. Chrysler. When the ground breaking occurred on September 19, 1928, there was an intense competition in New York City to build the world's tallest skyscraper. Despite a frantic pace (the building was built at an average rate of four floors per week), no workers died during the construction of this skyscraper.
When the building first opened, it contained a public viewing gallery on the 71st floor, which was closed to the public in 1945. This floor is now the highest occupied floor of the Chrysler Building, it was occupied by an office space management firm in 1986. The private Cloud Club occupied a three-floor high space from the 66th–68th floors, but closed in the late 1970s. Above the 71st floor, the stories of the building are designed mostly for exterior appearance, functioning mainly as landings for the stairway to the spire. These top stories are very narrow with low, sloped ceilings, and are useful only for holding radio-broadcasting and other mechanical and electrical equipment. Television station WCBS-TV (Channel 2) originally transmitted from the top of the Chrysler in the 1940s and early 1950s, before moving to the Empire State Building. For many years, WPAT-FM and WTFM (now WKTU) also used the Chrysler Building as a transmission site, but they also moved to the Empire State Building by the 1970s. There are currently no commercial broadcast stations located at the Chrysler Building."
--Wikipedia