A Walk Through New York’s Skyscraper History

The exhilarating thrust of the Empire State Building’s limestone and granite verticality, accented with gleaming stainless-steel mullions; the extraordinary, automobile-inspired, chromium-like, multiarched crown of the Chrysler Building; Woolworth’s Gothicism, even the World Trade Center’s twin banalities . . . these are the iconography of New York City.

Whatever the diversity of their environments, most great cities have characteristic architectural styles. The visitor who thinks of Washington, for instance, is likely to conjure up images of the grand Beaux-Arts monuments of Capitol Hill and the Mall, structures formal and substantial.

Historic Boston and Philadelphia both say Georgian and Federal brick--handsome, angular buildings of decidedly human scale, with delicately paned windows and crowned with cupolas, steeples and weather vanes.

For this city, the characteristic mode is the skyscraper, with all its vigor, brashness and elan, as well as the attendant disadvantages of crowded air space and darkened, claustrophobic streets.

Most Still Stand

Skyscrapers are New York--and most of the city’s great ones still stand. Not only that, many have recently been spruced up and so look better than they have in decades--a result at least in part of the renewed respect for Art Deco, the style of many of the best buildings.

In addition, many of their spires and crowns have been illuminated, making the city’s night skyline more beautiful than ever.

An informal architectural journey through the city’s skyscraper history is a perfect excuse to spend a day wandering from mid-town to downtown and back, with a few assists from the subway system.

With just $10 in pocket to cover expenses--that included two hot dogs for lunch from one of the ubiquitous umbrella-shaded carts--I set out to visit some of my favorite skyscrapers.

The Empire State Building stands in the heart of Manhattan--geographically and spiritually. It is the quintessential skyscraper, designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and completed in 1931.

At 1,250 feet, this streamlined gray eminence surpassed by 204 feet the Chrysler Building, which had reigned as tallest for about a year.

The Empire State’s claim to being the world’s most famous building has credibility. I began my tour there.

From its observatory I could see the whole of New York’s skyline, learn something about the architectural development of the city and enjoy a bird’s-eye view of many of the spires and towers I’d be looking up to later on.

Looking up is the secret to enjoying skyscraper architecture. Particularly where buildings are tightly packed together, you really have to crane your neck.

Long Weekend Lines

As I walked south down Fifth Avenue, the Empire State, which fills the block between 33rd and 34th streets, loomed into view about 40th Street, when it came clear of a nondescript new tower that mutilates what once was a fine vista from farther north.

The great building’s east flank was dazzlingly lit by the morning sun. I was arriving early for the observatory’s 9:30 a.m. opening to avoid the long lines that build on weekends. (The observatory closes at midnight, with the last tickets sold at 11:30 p.m.)

On weekends when the offices are closed, access to the observatories is through the main entrance only, on Fifth Avenue, a fortunate approach, as it brought me face to face with a vast, gleaming, machine-age mural of the building in metal bas-relief.

This is the centerpiece of the lobby--a moderne classic of variegated light- and dark-gray marble, with metal and glass Art Deco accents.

At the ticket counter for the observatory ($3 for adults, $1.75 for children under 12) a sign indicates visibility: 10 miles, 15 miles, 25 miles or unlimited. Unfortunately, the marker pointed to 10 miles.

When I stepped out on the deck of the open 86th-floor observatory, the panorama was impressive but hazy.

Goaded by the Mt. Everest principle (“because it’s there”), I lined up to squeeze into the small elevator cab for a ride to the top--the 106th-floor observatory, an enclosed, cramped arcade of riveted girders marred by graffiti. For viewing, the 86th floor is high enough and far more comfortable.

To the north, where the skyline has become increasingly cluttered, I made out the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center against the green patch of Central Park.

I saw the slanted roof of the decade-old Citicorp Building and the unfortunate bulk of the Pan Am Building--its cornice blatantly labeled, making misidentification impossible.

To the northeast shone the metallic, vertically arcaded cone of Chrysler--thought by many to be New York’s most interesting skyscraper and my personal favorite.

To the south, in the hazy distance at the tip of Manhattan, a cluster of buildings towered beyond a perceived flatness: a carpet of roofs, modest spires and peaks.

World Trade Center

Soaring above the rest, bullying the skyline, were the twin towers of the World Trade Center, irredeemably prosaic rectangles with little to recommend them but height.

When completed in 1976 they took over as New York’s tallest--a title that had been the Empire State Building’s for 45 years.

Peering down, I watched toy yellow cabs flow silently south 10 blocks to where Broadway cuts across on its diagonal course, forming Madison Square.

There the sun was creeping along the broad flank of the venerable Flatiron Building, completed in 1902 and thus the oldest of the city’s great skyscrapers.

Nearby were the gilded caps of the New York Life Building and Metropolitan Life Tower.

Fifteen minutes later, after strolling down Fifth Avenue, I was standing at the feet of those buildings looking up.

Grace and Novelty

Madison Square Park gave me space to back up and appreciate the surrounding buildings, an opportunity lacking in the overbuilt blocks farther uptown.

The Flatiron Building, splitting the intersection of Broadway and Fifth, its narrow nose at 23rd Street, is an idiosyncratic wedge blanketed with French Renaissance ornamentation, still remarkable in its lightness, grace and novelty.

Famous photographers such as Berenice Abbott, Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz have been attracted to this building, all making memorable images of it.

Just east, through a tracery of tree branches, I saw the handsome, Gothic-detailed New York Life Building designed by Cass Gilbert and completed in 1928 on the site of the original Madison Square Garden.

A block south, at 1 Madison Ave., stands the pale white Metropolitan Life Tower, an Italian Renaissance structure modeled after the Campanile of Venice.

On a plaque by the main entrance I read of the tower’s “massive simplicity” and learned that the four clock faces are each 26 1/2 feet in diameter and that each minute hand weighs half a ton.

When completed in 1909 the Metropolitan Life Tower became the city’s tallest at 700 feet. But in 1913 the title passed to the Woolworth Building. At 55 floors and 792 feet, this classic American-Gothic skyscraper would reign as champion for 27 years, until the advent of the Art Deco giants, beginning with the Chrysler Building in 1930.

I ducked into the BMT subway at the base of the Flatiron, bought a couple of tokens for $1 each, boarded the R Train (the Broadway Local), and in a few minutes, after getting off at the City Hall stop, stood in the park gazing at the sunlit face of the elegant, delicate Woolworth Building, a product of the passionate vision of chain-store magnate Frank Woolworth.

Among the greatest American skyscrapers, it’s in fine shape thanks to a major restoration begun a decade ago and completed in 1981.

The cruciform lobby has the Gothic detailing you’d expect to find in a church: heavy gilded ornamentation, vaulted ceilings, elevators that look like confessionals.

The lobby is open daily, and the security guard on duty has informative pamphlets about the building available for the asking.

From City Hall Park, looking toward the East River, I could see the Municipal Building, completed a year after the Woolworth. Designed by McKim, Mead & White, it’s an unusual grafting of the firm’s typical Beaux-Arts styling onto a building of skyscraper proportions.

To end my tour I caught the Lexington Avenue subway back uptown--taking the first train that came along, because any would do--from the station at the far side of the park.

I got off at Grand Central-42nd Street and headed for the Chrysler Building at the corner of 42nd and Lexington.

Diagonally opposite is the Chanin Building of 1928--no Art Deco slouch, with intricate terra cotta bas-reliefs, but no match for its automotive neighbor, designed by William Van Alen and completed in 1930.

The Chrysler Building always provokes superlatives. At 77 stories and 1,048 feet it was briefly the tallest, but that hardly matters.

Stainless-Steel Tower

Inside and out it epitomizes machine-age inspiration at its best. The building’s exterior flaunts its automotive detailing--hubcaps, hood ornaments--and culminates in a spire-capped stainless-steel tower.

Even better is the magnificent, subtly lit lobby. (On weekends it’s partially barricaded, though it is still possible to get a fair view.)

The ceiling is covered by an Edward Trumbull mural. Walls and floor are fabricated of blue marble from Belgium, red marble from Morocco, sienna travertine from Germany, Norwegian granite. Elevator doors are inlaid wood veneer.

Both in individual detailing and overall effect, it’s an incomparable tour de force.

For additional information, contact New York Convention and Visitors Bureau, 2 Columbus Circle, New York 10019.