The History of Midtown Manhattan’s Most Famous Buildings

Of all the great cities in the world, few personify their country like New York City. As America’s largest city and best known immigration gateway into the country, the Big Apple represents the beauty, diversity and sheer strength of the United States, a global financial center that has enticed people chasing the “American Dream” for centuries.

Given that history, it’s no surprise that New Yorkers have always wanted to construct the biggest and best structures possible, even in the early 1930s at the height of the Great Depression. Indeed, those years produced the Empire State Building, which remains the city’s most iconic building, but New York’s most famous skyscraper wouldn’t have been possible without the Chrysler Building, a landmark in its own right that was the tallest building in the world for nearly a year before its more famous counterpart’s completion. In fact, the spirit of competition between the groups working on the two buildings helped ensure that both look like they do today, and the Chrysler Building only reached the height it did because a large skyscraper at 40 Wall Street was also trying to claim the mantle of tallest building at the same time.

The Chrysler Building was the first man-made object to surpass 1,000 feet in height, and while it has been surpassed by considerably taller projects since, it remains the largest steel-supported brick building in the world. Although it has since been sold to new groups, the name has remained, and the Chrysler Building continues to be a conspicuous part of the skyline in Midtown.

The Empire State Building was constructed using the Art Deco style, which was trendy during the era and had been used for other skyscrapers like the Chrysler Building, but that’s where the comparisons end, because the Empire State Building was unprecedented in almost every aspect at the time of its creation.