Walter Chrysler's Monument to Himself

The head of the Chrysler Motors Corp., Walter Chrysler, was one of those big dreaming, big living types who flourished so much in America in the 1920's.

I see this building every day on the nearby horizon and it never loses its appeal. I believe this is in large part in due to the "Great Gatsby" -like excess that expresses itself in the design ( especially details)  of what is, after all, a very practical huge office tower.

Note all the busy-ness that went into the building's creation ( from Wikipedia)

The Chrysler Building was designed by architect William Van Alen for a project of Walter P. Chrysler.^[11] When the ground breaking occurred on September 19, 1928, there was an intense competition in New York City to build the world's tallest skyscraper.^[12][13] Despite a frantic pace (the building was built at an average rate of four floors per week), no workers died during the construction of this skyscraper.^[14]

Design beginnings

Van Alen's original design for the skyscraper called for a decorative jewel-like glass crown. It also featured a base in which the showroom windows were tripled in height and topped by 12 stories with glass-wrapped corners, creating an impression that the tower appeared physically and visually light as if floating in mid-air.^[11] The height of the skyscraper was also originally designed to be 246 meters (807 ft).^[14] However, the design proved to be too advanced and costly for building contractor William H. Reynolds, who disapproved of Van Alen's original plan.^[15] The design and lease were then sold to Walter P. Chrysler, who worked with Van Alen and redesigned the skyscraper for additional stories; it was eventually revised to be 282 m (925 ft) tall.^[14] As Walter Chrysler was the chairman of the Chrysler Corporation and intended to make the building into Chrysler's headquarters,^[14] various architectural details and especially the building's gargoyles were modeled after Chrysler automobile products like the hood ornaments of the Plymouth; they exemplify the machine age in the 1920s (see below).^[16][17]

Every time I walk down East 42nd Street, there are people craning their necks to get a good look at the tower, and of course a lot of them have their cameras out...why not, it is such a photogenic piece of work.

One writer friend of mine from Facebook described the Empire State and the Chrysler buildings seen from New Jersey as "these syringe needles pointed into the sky," which is a fitting enough image...