Video and text:

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/video/watch/the-blueprint-show-why-the-chrysler-building-is-a-new-york-city-icon#intcid=_architectural-digest-bottom-recirc_1f4281f1-f5f8-4510-96f2-7f246f8a5f71_similar2-3

I worked in the Chrysler Building from 1974-1977. If you'd like to hear more about it, I know a few tidbits that wouldn't be obvious from the public spaces.

please share.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Would like to hear the stories.

I lucked out in 1977 and had 3 months lodging and expenses paid and stayed near the Chrysler Building.

I can't recall the name of it, but loved an Irish bar that was nearby. Became friends with the family and would stay with them and their friends after they closed the bar doors at closing time. I listened to them singing and enjoyed the fun and friendly times.

recently someone told me the Saudis had purchased it and no longer allowed the public tours......does anyone know if this is true or not?

Asking an old man about his younger days is risky business.

I worked for Texaco's IT department just out of college. Texaco had taken over about a third of the building in the 1940's, and it was still their headquarters at the time. The Texaco touring center, where you could get maps and trip planning, was in the old Chrysler display showroom on the ground floor, and the IT ghetto was on the second floor, just above it. The main showroom had been on the second floor, and the touring center was connected with our floor by an old escalator, which had been walled off. It was very dull and corporate at that time, but when the building was new, the area looked like this:



My cubicle was at the top of the escalator in the back of the photo. The most striking feature of the showroom/touring center were the cylindrical windows on the 42nd street side. These were intended to accentuate the lines of the cars inside, like fun house mirrors:




In 1977, an FALN terrorist planted a bomb in the travel center, blowing the place sky high and killing a guard. Afterwards, the windows were replaced with flat glass. It's now a bland storefront, all the drama gone.

My office on the second floor had been the main business floor of the showroom. At one time, cars had been loaded in and out with a crane, parts of which could still be seen on the 43rd street side, probably gone now.

All of us in IT were young kids, and we'd spend many hours exploring the building, which had more trick spaces than a mansion in a victorian ghost story. For example, some long ago occupant had built a private chapel on the 15th floor. At the time, it was used as the library for our law department. It was all mahogany and sandstone, and had a woodburning fireplace along an outside wall.

One day, we decided the time had come to explore the spire. it wasn't easy to get there. There were a couple of elevators, some secret stairways, and eventually we worked our way up to a steel stair that wound it's way up into the spire. This area had been an observation deck when the building was new, but the little triangular windows made it less of an attraction than the new Empire State. So it closed to the public. It was used as a broadcast studio for a time, and there was still a lot of old equipment up there. Some of the triangular windows had blown out, and the place was filled with wind and pigeons. I remember peeking out one of the broken windows and being seized with vertigo. The spire was used as the backdrop for a horror movie around this time, it was called Quetzacoatal. I'm sure everyone remembers it.

Every company in the building had it's favorite bar. Business was very much a man's world, and a lot of it was conducted over a brew. As far as I remember, every bar in the area was named McCann's, by some quirk.

The neighborhood needs some mention. Manhattan grew rich from the center out. This was because the edges of the island were very industrial, starting with the dockyards on both the Hudson and the East rivers. Then the elevated trains were build along 2nd and 3rd avenue, and along 10th on the west side. So the better areas were in the center of the island. By the 70's, King Kong had destroyed the els, opening the sides of the island to gentrification. But even before this, there was pressure to clean up the waterfronts. The Chrysler building, built between Lex and third, was the easternmost outpost of civility when it was built. And in the 70's, it still felt that way. Lexington Avenue was the reddest of red light districts from 43rd street north to 59th. Trump redeveloped the Commodore Hotel in 1974. Although the renovation was insensitive and tasteless, it was the first step to revitalizing the area. Citicorp tower, built in 1977, bookended Lexington redevelopment and began a process of tearing down old buildings and putting up new that resurrected the area and finally put the Chrysler building back on the A list. Before that, it was neglected and maybe a little less than a desirable address.

Back to the story. The Chrysler building was one of the first to have central air conditioning. And it was made by Chrysler Airtemp. As the main New York showroom, our floor had a special air conditioner. It sat on one side of the floor, in a floor-to-ceiling fishtank, made of glass and aluminum. The mechanicals were either plated or enameled in green, like a Chrysler engine of the day. The water piping was polished copper with a lacquer finish to prevent tarnish. There was a cloisonne Chrysler medallion on the front of the case.

On a very hot day in 1976, it began making the most horrendous vibration. The repair guys came, and there was no hope. A nickel plated shaft had gone out of true. There were no spares, and they certainly weren't going to have one made by a machinist. The repair guy held up the shaft and said "ain't it just like Detroit? if it don't work, chrome it!" So the entire unit was replaced with a modern Carrier in a plain grey cabinet, which didn't work any better and certainly wasn't attractive. The A/C unit was trundled off to a sub basement somewhere, and it's probably still there, waiting to be discovered by some student of urban archaeology.

The land on which the Chrysler building stands is owned by Cooper Union, which has collected rent for a hundred years. This allowed them to offer free tuition through the 20th century.

The building to the east of the Chrysler building used to be called the Kent building. It was actually part of the complex, and the buildings were siamesed to about the 10th floor. Although the Kent building was only about half the height, it was square with less dramatic setbacks, so it had the same floor space as the main building. The strange thing about the building is that because it had complimentary brickwork and was artfully sized and placed, it seemed as if it was invisible. Nobody can recall what it looked like, and few even remember it. The Kent building was redeveloped into a gleaming mess of glass in the last twenty years or so. It's no longer invisible.

On the 75th or 76th floor of the Chrysler building, there was a private dining club called the Cloud Club. Members had a locker in the walk-in humidor and a rack in the wine cellar. Texaco's chief at the time was Gus Long (short for Augustus Caesar), and he had a private dining room there. It had a WPA mural similar to the one in the lobby, but this one depicted various scenes from the Texaco empire: gushers at Spindletop, oil tankers, coast to coast gas stations, and so on.

As for public tours, I don't know that there ever were any. There was an incident around 1974 where someone scrawled graffiti in the elevators. After that, you had to pass muster with the security guard to get past the lobby. There was a group, called the Art Deco Society, or something like that, which would periodically get permission to tour. But outside of the lobby, the building has been off limits to tourists as long as I can remember.

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I found the movie. It was "Q, the Winged Serpent." Good luck finding that gem.

Mxfrank,

Thanks for sharing some of your memories. Every person's thoughts are like a private museum. No one else can visit unless they're shared.

Thanx for all the interesting data .

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-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

Yes indeed, great thread.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K