No tours @ The Chrysler Building - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Mister Byrnzoil · #1 08-21-2008, 09:16 AM

I'm usually in NYC every weekend, I have always loved the building and I have always wanted to see those eagle hood ornaments close up...

Big Pic (1.1 mgs) I took on a brilliant day

http://rbk3.com/nyc/IMG_1625.JPG

so I stopped by and spoke to the guard in the lobby. He said that the building was privately owned and that no tours were given. I commented that I was a car guy and how much I liked art deco auto theme, and especially the eagles. He replied that a law firm was on the 61st floor and that was the only place you can really see them. I persisted and he offered to arrest me so that I might avail myself of that law firm, thereby gaining entrance to the 61st floor and thussly viewing the eagles. I politely declined.

Its still worth going, the lobby is stunning, the mural is awesome...heres a review...

It is illuminated with some simple Art Deco light fixtures whose emanation is amplified by reflections along its exceedingly luscious red Moroccan marble walls, yellow Siena marble floor and amber onyx and blue marble trim. The large lobby ceiling is covered by a mural, entitled, "Energy, Result, Workmanship and Transportation," by Edward Turnbull. The elaborate and confusing mural contains a large image of the building, a plane, workers, and decorative patterns. As much of the ceiling has recessed lighting and the overall illumination in the large space is quite low, it is very difficult to appreciate the mural on which the artist allegedly used some of the building's construction workers as models. The 100 by 76 foot mural was covered in the 1970's with a coating that darkened it and and spotlights were cut into it. As part of a $100 million renovation project by Tishman Speyer Properties, that included the reclading with glass of the white-brick annex office tower at Third Avenue and the creation of angled, prismatic structures in the low-rise spaces between the annex and the Chrysler Building, the mural was restored in 1999 by the EverGreene Painting Studios.

Mistress · #2 08-21-2008, 09:53 AM

Take a woman with you who has legs like Charleze Theron and I'll bet you get in....

MTI · #3 08-21-2008, 12:57 PM

This summer an Abu Dhabi investment fund paid $800M for 90% ownership of the building. I don't recall there ever being public tours of the landmark.

sunedog · #4 08-21-2008, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mistress

Take a woman with you who has legs like Charleze Theron and I'll bet you get in....

If I could get a woman like that, I'd skip the office building and head straight for the nearest hotel.

Mister Byrnzoil · #5 08-21-2008, 04:20 PM

found an awesome page of pics...

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/MID/MID021.htm

euronatura · #6 08-21-2008, 04:28 PM

I think that OSHA may have problems with at least one of these pics. Can you guess which one?

Mister Byrnzoil · #7 08-21-2008, 04:42 PM

I get your meaning, but in actuality, the guy in the upper pic is a violation too, these days OSHA requires a full body harness, those old waist-belts almost did more harm than good. That pic must have been taken in the 1980s.

bgkast · #8 08-21-2008, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by euronatura

I think that OSHA may have problems with at least one of these pics. Can you guess which one?

What are you talking about? In the words of Peter Griffin "women arn't people"

euronatura · #9 08-21-2008, 04:56 PM

Is that why she is not wearing a harness or any safety gear?

MS Fowler · #10 08-21-2008, 05:06 PM

She is not wearing any harness or safety gear because NO ONE wore harnesses or safety gear back then. Look at pictures of the construction of any major building or bridge of that era, and you see few, if any, concessions to safety. As hard as it may be to believe, people in construction trades actually survived before OSHA was there to protect them.

euronatura · #11 08-21-2008, 05:10 PM

I know that. I was joking......

Mister Byrnzoil · #12 08-21-2008, 05:18 PM

the mural is huge 76'x100', please note, they will not let you lay on your back and look up at it, like they will @ the Sistene Chapel.

Mister Byrnzoil · #13 08-21-2008, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by euronatura

I know that. I was joking......

You have to put a

(sarcastic) at the end of things like that, any country that voted for GWB 2x needs things spelled out for them...

<--- see? like that.

al76slc · #14 08-21-2008, 05:27 PM

I love the story about the competition to be the tallest building...

One day in April 1929 an agitated Walter Chrysler called elite architect William Van Alen into his Manhattan office. "Van, you've just got to get up and do something," said the auto magnate, according to a contemporary account. "It looks as if we're not going to be the highest after all."

Chrysler's bid to put up the tallest building in the world, a monument to himself and American capitalism, was in jeopardy. In the canyons of Lower Manhattan, George Ohrstrom, a 34-year-old banker dubbed "the kid," was vowing to set the record at 40 Wall Street.

"Think up something," Chrysler harangued his architect. "Your valves need grinding. There's a knock in you somewhere. Speed up your carburetor. Go to it!" The great skyscraper race was afoot.

At 40 Wall Street, the cold calculus of money was paramount. Ohrstrom, the investment banker, chose Craig Severance, Van Alen's estranged former partner, to be the architect. The building took form from the inside out, according to Bascomb. Severance figured out how many offices he could fit on a floor, then placed the elevators and the steel columns to determine the shape of the building, which would rise 67 stories and reach 840 feet.

Construction started in May 1929, under deadline pressure. In those days, all New York office leases began on May 1. To finish 40 Wall Street by that date in 1930, workers laid foundations for the tower even before they had finished wrecking the old building on the site.

In August 1929, Bascomb writes, rumors reached Severance that Van Alen had tweaked the Chrysler Building to exceed the official 808 feet. Severance made his building's pyramidal top steeper and added a 60-foot steel cap to push 40 Wall Street to 925 feet.

With three shifts working seven days a week, builder Paul Starrett met the May 1930 deadline and set a speed record for completing a skyscraper.

But Ohrstrom, Severance, and Starrett had jumped the gun in claiming the height prize. In November 1929, with the interior still unfinished, they invited the downtown elite to a ceremony. "The World's Tallest Building Raises the Stars & Stripes to the New York Heavens," said the headline in the New York World. Unbeknownst to those assembled, Chrysler and Van Alen had outfoxed them.

First Van Alen added an arch to the ornate steel dome, bringing the Chrysler Building to 860 feet. Then he ordered workers to assemble a 27-ton steel tip deep within the construction site. A few weeks before the Wall Street event, workers hoisted the spike--called a "vertex"--to the top. The Chrysler Building gained 186 feet instantly; at 1,046 feet, it surpassed 40 Wall Street and the Eiffel Tower, for 40 years the world's tallest structure. No one noticed until the story broke four days after the downtown ceremony.

Gimmicks. Ohrstrom and Severance led a campaign to condemn Chrysler's dirty trick. George Chappell, the New Yorker's architecture critic, denounced Chrysler's building as "a stunt design, evolved to make the man in the street look up." In response, Chrysler hired famed photographer Margaret Bourke-White to climb 1,000 feet and take sweeping photos of his building.

Chrysler was soon overshadowed by Raskob, who had hired Al Smith, the former presidential candidate and New York governor, as a front man. In December 1929, Smith announced to his old pals in the press that the Empire State Building would rise 202 feet taller than the Chrysler Building. Most of the elevation would come from a mooring mast for zeppelins. It soon became clear that zeppelins could not land at 1,250 feet, 102 stories above the street, because of crosswinds. That didn't faze Raskob: Topping the others was what counted.

Raskob and Smith hired Starrett, who embarked on a second all-out construction push. Another rental deadline loomed, 11 months away. To finish by May 1, 1931, he couldn't afford to let his 3,500 men come down from the higher floors for lunch, so he built them restaurants in the unfinished building. The Empire State Building opened on time in 1931, at less than half the projected $50 million cost.

It hardly mattered: By then the nation was mired in the Great Depression. With a 77 percent vacancy rate, critics began to call the world's tallest building the Empty State. One half-seriously suggested turning it into a hotel for New York's 1 million homeless.

Starrett suffered a nervous breakdown, Ohrstrom lost his stake in 40 Wall Street, and Van Alen never worked on another big commission. "Another Louisiana Bubble had burst, but at least something more than paper and forlorn dreams were left," Starrett later wrote in his autobiography. "The tall buildings remained. They would stand for a long time."

John Doe · #15 08-21-2008, 05:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mister Byrnzoil

You have to put a

(sarcastic) at the end of things like that, any country that voted for GWB 2x needs things spelled out for them...

<--- see? like that.

Keep in mind there are also people in this country who live no where near NYC and get there only 2-4X/year that voted for GWB 2x and have no problem getting access to the Chrysler building whatsoever, including a ride to the 61st floor, to chat with their friends.