The Chrysler Building: Creating a New York Icon Day by Day [Hardcover]

David Stravitz (Author), Christopher Gray (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2002

The Chrysler Building is surely the jewel in the crown of New York City's skyline. Completed in 1930, the 77-story Art Deco skyscraper--the tallest in the world at the time it was finished--quickly became the symbol of big city glamour, excitement, and style. Its cloud-piercing spire and gleaming, steel-clad ornament depicting gargoyles, hubcaps, and the winged helmets of Mercury came to represent the thrill of the Machine Age at its most exuberant.

But, until now, this magnificent building has also been one of the least documented and studied, a simple result of the fact that there were no known archives relating to its design or construction. This material was lost in the decades following its completion, or so everyone believed, until author David Stravitz discovered a box of negatives on the floor of a defunct stock photo company, just days before they were to be shipped off for silver reclamation. The never-before-seen photographs, reproduced as sumptuous duotones in this oversize book, illustrate the day-by-day construction of this American icon.

The photographs were taken by professional photo companies hired to document the construction of the building. In so doing, they also captured the day-to-day life taking place on the streets and in the environs of the Chrysler Building in exquisite detail.

This book beautifully illustrates the history of one of the most important buildings in New York as it emerged from street level to spire.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While buying some equipment from an elderly photographer, Stravitz, a designer and product developer who holds more than 100 patents and 400 copyrights, stumbled onto a collection of negatives taken by the commercial and industrial photographers Peyser & Patzig that chronicled the construction of the Chrysler Building, the art deco masterpiece on New York City's 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Introduced by New York Times "Streetscapes" columnist Christopher Grey, these 170 duotones-some lush and some grainy-begin with the lot's nondescript previous building, which was demolished by 1928, and continue through the massive girding of the uncompleted tower, swarmed over by teams of bricklayers and captured in long shots as it neared being "ready for occupancy in the Spring of 1930" (as one billboard reads)-a year or so ahead of the rival Empire State Building. Images of offices with stiff-looking bureaucrats and deluxe interior shots of marble, chrome and frescos top things off. The photos are catalogued in the back, leaving them uncluttered by extraneous text-it's all pure loft and shimmer from the golden age of skyscrapers.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

New York City's Chrysler Building, which was completed just after the 1929 stock market crash, remains one of the most spectacular and recognizable features of the city's skyline. Its shiny stainless steel spire made the building the tallest in the world for a short time and attracted both negative and admiring attention for its "frivolous" Art Deco design. Designer and photo aficionado Stravitz here presents a visual record of the building's construction, as documented by stock photographers of the day, in more than 100 black-and-white images. The 8 10 negatives of these photos were about to be scrapped for silver in 1979 when Stravitz bought and "rescued" them from a retired New Jersey photographer. The full-page plates, identified in the back of the book, are preceded by an introduction by New York Times architectural writer Christopher Gray (Changing New York), who briefly discusses the building's history. A more thorough text would have given the volume further value. Still, the book is packed with visual information about early 20th-century construction and the details of the daily life happening around it. For all New York City libraries and large public libraries.
Carolyn Kuebler, "Library Journal"
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press; 1 edition (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568983549
• ISBN-13: 978-1568983547
• Product Dimensions: 12.1 x 10 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #369,377 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Loving Restoration, April 19, 2005

By 

John P Bernat (Kingsport, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Chrysler Building: Creating a New York Icon Day by Day (Hardcover)

This book is very expensive, but very worth it.

As described, the author discovered, almost by accident, a real treasure trove of exquisitely high quality photographs taken to document the building's completion to architectural specification. Rounding out a wonderfully detailed description of the economic and entrepreneurial forces behind its construction, these beautiful pictures bring the reader back into not just a major building project but a whole era. See the clothes, the cars - everything that made this a pinnacle of American exuberance and optimism.

While the text is good, you might want to look at two other better examples of stories of the buildings that symbolized this era: John Tauranac's book on the Empire State building and "Great Fortune," Daniel Okrent's rendering of "The Epic of Rockefeller Center."

They were hard times, to be sure, but often remembered with special fondness for those things which symbolized what we aspired.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The glory of Van Alen's frivolity, October 5, 2003

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Chrysler Building: Creating a New York Icon Day by Day (Hardcover)

Author David Stravitz wisely bought over five hundred, soon to be destroyed, negatives in 1979. They pictured New York in the 1920s and 30s and in particular one hundred and fifty showed the day by day construction of the Chrysler Building. Over a hundred of them are reproduced in this stunning book. Taken by commercial photographers Peyser & Patzig, most likely as a record for the contractor Fred Ley, they show the building as a hole in the ground on November nine 1929 to the completion of the annex in January nine 1931.

There is something about pre-war photos, perhaps the chemicals used on glass plates or the type of paper used for the black and white prints but whatever, old photos seem to have a richness of texture that enhances their appearance and you certainly notice this in these pictures. As well as their quality (don't forget this was straightforward commercial photo assignment) there is plenty to see of the building construction, what is going on in the surrounding streets and several panoramas of mid-town Manhattan taken from the Chrysler Building, including a dramatic four-page gatefold.

This is the sort of detail you'll see, pages eight and nine show the empty building site (taken on November nine) and traffic on three sides, turn the page to see a photo (November seventeen) showing dozens of male spectators looking down on the building site, now full of working construction equipment, traffic and a newsstand has appeared on a corner, by December one this newsstand has become a hut and incorporated into the fencing that now runs round the site. After the exterior, the cameraman went inside to capture the lovely deco detailing.

In the back of the book there are thumbnails and captions for the photos. Page 154 has five floor plans (I was rather disappointed that there were not more diagrams showing the exterior decorative work) and you realise that the building is not oblong, the non-street end has a chamfered side. Just one of the many insights that you'll get from this fascinating photo study of one of the world's great landmarks.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars THE New York Skyscraper, May 2, 2005

By 

Shannon Deason (Houston) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Chrysler Building: Creating a New York Icon Day by Day (Hardcover)

This is a wonderful book with amazing vintage black and white period photos. The book mostly focuses on the building of the skyscraper in the 30's and my only qualm with the book is the lack of current photos of the building, but that is a minor critisism and should not reflect on the overall excellent quality of the book. The Chrysler Building is a pinnacle of Art Deco style and I love it. The history of the building is so interesting and story of the spire is such a quenticential New York moment. I recomend this book to anyone who loves the romance of the skyscraper and this one is magical.