{"id":42757,"date":"2025-04-25T16:43:41","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T15:43:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=42757"},"modified":"2025-04-25T16:43:41","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T15:43:41","slug":"ihbc-features-heritage-from-the-global-doorstep-every-hidden-detail-of-new-yorks-classic-skyscrapers-the-chrysler-empire-state-woolworth-buildings-from-o","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=42757","title":{"rendered":"IHBC features \u2018Heritage from the Global doorstep\u2019: Every Hidden Detail of New York\u2019s Classic Skyscrapers – The Chrysler, Empire State & Woolworth Buildings \u2013 from Open Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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image for illustration: Peter Badcock<\/sub><\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Open Culture<\/em> features architectural historian Tony Robins in a half-hour video explores the enduring \u2018big stars of the New York City skyline\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Open Culture<\/em> writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026Currently, the tallest buildings in New York City are One World Trade Center, Central Park Tower, and 111 West 57th Street. All of them were completed in the twenty-twenties, and all of them have attracted comment, sometimes admiring, sometimes bewildered. But none of them, fair to say, yet exude the romance of the Woolworth Building, the Chrysler Building, and the Empire State Building, all of which opened before World War II, and each of which once had its day as the tallest building in the world\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026 This video [recorded by Colin Marshall] comes as the pilot episode of \u2018Obsession to Detail,\u2019 a new series from Daily Mail Business YouTube channel. The Mail may not come right to mind as a source of architectural commentary, but in this case, they\u2019ve found the right man for the job. He knows that the Woolworth Building\u2019s lobby contains gargoyle-like caricatures of its architect and client; that the Chrysler Building once had a private club on its 66th, 67th, and 68th floors whose bar had both a painting of the New York skyline and a view of the real thing; that the 86-story Empire State Building is promoted as having 102 stories only by including its unused dirigible mooring mast and sub-basements; and that what we now call Art Deco was, in its day, referred to as \u2018the vertical style,\u2019 in reference to the proportions its buildings were rapidly gaining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An experienced New York tour guide, Robins would be remiss if he didn\u2019t tell you all these facts and many more besides. It\u2019s presumably also part of his job to frame the processes that gave rise (or indeed, high rise) to these skyscrapers as in keeping with the ceaseless one-upmanship and self-promotion that is the spirit of his city. A particularly illustrative episode occurred when Minoru Yamasaki\u2019s original World Trade Center went up in the early seventies, which provoked a response from the Empire State Building in the form of a rectangular addition on top that would preserve its status as the world\u2019s tallest building. Robins has been in the game long enough to have had the chance to ask the architect who designed that proposal if he was serious. \u2018Of course not,\u2019 came the reply. \u2018This was all for public relations. This is New York. This is who we are. This is what we do.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n