Overstated

While it likely held the title before, in the post 9/11 era, the Empire State Building is clearly the most famous and most popular building in New York City. The only question, is why?

Completed in 1931, it may receive some of its fame from being the tallest building in the world from 1931 through 1967 and the tallest in New York from 1931 through 1970 and again after September 11, 2001. Despite the fine pedigree of height, it is rather unremarkable in appearance.

The Empire State has a relatively basic masonry facade from top to bottom. The top of the building uses a rather plain set of setbacks and the spire is a gangly looking thing. Quite simply I would describe the building as lacking any sort of grace. Any grandeur the building may have comes from favorable zoning which disallows other skyscrapers to encroach upon its bland magnificence. If there is anything cool about the building it is the fact that they intended to use the spire as mooring for zeppelins, but poor engineering doomed this idea to exist only in the movies.

Long playing second fiddle to it's more famous neighbor, the Chrysler Building stands in sharp contrast to drab tower.

An absolute masterpiece of the Art Deco era (the building practically defines the style) the Chrysler Building proves bigger isn't always better; it was the tallest building in New York and the world for only a year.

In place of a boring series of setbacks, the Chrysler Building has a series of seven crowns designed to match he Chrysler cars of the era. Atop the crowns is a clean spire that extends the apparent height upward in a poised manner. At lower levels the building has decorative eagles spreading themselves out in all directions. In the summer the whole top of the building literally shimmers.

I'm by no means an expert in dancing about architecture, but for my money I'll take the Chrysler Builder over King Kong's jungle gym any day.

Empire State Building photo from redperm
Chrysler Building photo from mangus*

Comments

[Jake]

I think it's less the building and more it's connection to New York. Chicago is a far distant city to New York. It's smaller, colder, and far less multi-cultural...especially in the early half of the 1900s. The Empire State Building stands as an icon for the city, much like the Golden Gate Bridge stands for SF, despite the larger and more impressive Bay Bridge in the same locale. I think part of this is that both exist as a monument in defiance of the great depression, giving people jobs and income. This makes these structures more than simple utility bridges and buildings, but also give them historical and emotional significance.

In addition, Hollywood has often used the Empire State Building as a focal point of many of the New York movies for over half a century. Even the old radio serials used the building as a locale for high drama events (such as the Shadow serial radio show). I don't think it's the architecture that has put the Empire State Building as an immutable part of Americana, but all the positions it has held in our reality and fantasy over the years.