Chrysler Building
East 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue
Grand Central-East 42nd Street station (S, 4, 5, 6, or 7 train)
When the Chrysler Building was finished, it overtook the Eiffel Tower to become the tallest in the world. It was in a three-way race for the title (Forty Wall Street, now the Trump Building, also briefly held the top spot) and secured the honor — for only a year — after the builders erected a secretly built and delivered spire tower. The Empire State Building ultimately claimed the title of tallest building when it was completed in 1931.
The Chrysler Building is still the tallest brick building in the world and the second tallest building in New York. With seventy-seven floors, standing 1,046 feet high (319 meters), the Chrysler Building is an art deco masterpiece that continues to inspire New Yorkers every night with its illuminated crown of steel. Noted for its creative and clever use of automotive ornamental detail, such as the radiator-cap gargoyles and hood-ornament eagles on the eight corners of the sixty-first floor, the building has been a favorite of architecture buffs for more than seventy-five years.
In the 1930s, during Prohibition, the Chrysler Building housed an ultra-swanky speakeasy known as the Cloud Club on its sixty-sixth through sixty-eighth floors. It was said to have lavish pink-marble bathrooms and a bar featuring Bavarian wood, and members had their own private lockers. The spectacular floors have since been dismantled.
The building is known for its elegant lobby, which features African red marble and a majestic mural depicting the construction of the building itself, with portraits of some of the actual workers. The lobby was once a showroom for Chrysler-Plymouth cars. Each of the twenty-one elevators has a different design.
