The Most Beautiful Skyscraper in New York
Claudia Roth Pierpont has written The Silver Spire, a piece about the construction and critical reception of the Chrysler Building, for the current issue of The New Yorker. I had always wondered why the structure gleams so:
The use of diamond-honed Enduro KA-2 steel, developed by Krupp in Germany after the First World War and exhibited for the first time in 1926, was Chrysler's most significant decision. He had had it tested for months, to be sure that no amount of exposure would tarnish its almost metaphysical silver glow. When the top of the building was revealed, in 1930, critics marvelled at the incandescence that made it a beacon even to ships far out at sea; not a single metal sheet has ever been replaced, and on clear days the Chrysler tower is still outshone only by the sun itself.
The thumbnail photo above right is from a lovely black-and-white original by Adam Butler.
1:48:36 PM 
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