Many call this the most beautiful skyscraper ever built, and your eyes may agree. The Chrysler Building was completed in 1930 in a secret race with the Bank of Manhattan at 40 Wall Street, whose developer boasted he would build the world's tallest structure. The Chrysler's architect, William Van Alen, concealed a 185-foot stainless-steel spire inside the building's crown and raised it through the roof in ninety minutes after the Bank of Manhattan topped out, stealing the record.
The victory lasted only eleven months before the Empire State Building overtook both. But the stainless-steel Art Deco crown, with its radiating arcs of windows and Chrysler automobile eagle gargoyles at the corners of the 61st floor, remains unmatched for sheer style. At night the illuminated crown transforms the Midtown skyline.
Walk along Lexington Avenue and look up from a distance: the stainless steel catches sunlight and clouds and shifts color as you move. Walter Chrysler never moved in; he kept his offices here, but the building was never the automaker's headquarters.