The tallest before them
The Woolworth Building opened on April 24, 1913, at 233 Broadway, across from City Hall Park. Cass Gilbert designed it in Gothic dress for Frank W. Woolworth, who paid for it in cash. At 792 feet it was the tallest building in the world, and it held the title for 17 years. A minister called it the Cathedral of Commerce, and the name stuck. President Wilson pressed a button in Washington to light it on opening night.
The 1916 rule
In 1915 the Equitable Building rose straight up from its lot at 120 Broadway with no setbacks and threw a shadow over acres of neighboring property. The next year the city adopted the 1916 Zoning Resolution, the first comprehensive zoning law in the United States. It divided the city into use districts and, for tall buildings, drew a sky exposure plane: a tower had to step back as it rose so that light reached the street.
The rule produced the setback skyline. Architects treated the stepped envelope as a form, and the ziggurat tops of the 1920s and 1930s are the law drawn in stone. Rockefeller Center, built from 1930 through 1939, is the largest single expression of it. The 1961 Zoning Resolution replaced the 1916 rule with the plaza bonus and the sheer glass slab.
The race of 1929
Two men who had once been partners raced each other to the sky. H. Craig Severance designed 40 Wall Street for the Bank of Manhattan Company. William Van Alen designed the Chrysler Building at Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street for Walter P. Chrysler. Each revised his plans upward as the other's building rose. In 1929 Severance topped out at 927 feet, sure he had won.
Van Alen had a secret. Inside the Chrysler Building's fire shaft his crews assembled a 185 foot steel spire. In October 1929, days before the stock market crash, they raised it through the roof and bolted it in place in about 90 minutes. The Chrysler Building stood 1,046 feet, higher than 40 Wall Street and higher than the Eiffel Tower. It opened in May 1930 as the tallest building in the world.
Its crown of stainless steel arches and triangular windows, and its gargoyles modeled on Chrysler hood ornaments, made it the ornament of the Art Deco skyline. Chrysler refused to pay Van Alen his full fee. The architect sued and won, and never built another major tower.
The Empire State
The Chrysler Building held the title for 11 months. The Empire State Building rose on the site of the old Waldorf Astoria Hotel at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, designed by Shreve, Lamb and Harmon and financed by a group led by John J. Raskob, with former Governor Alfred E. Smith as its public face. Construction took about 13 months. Crews set steel at a pace of more than four floors a week.
The building opened on May 1, 1931. President Hoover pressed a button in Washington to turn on its lights. It stood 1,250 feet to the roof, 102 stories, with a mooring mast for airships that never worked as one. An antenna added later raised the total to 1,454 feet. It was the tallest building in the world until the World Trade Center's north tower passed it in 1970.
It opened into the Depression with much of its office space empty, and New Yorkers called it the Empty State Building. Its observatory earned more than its rents for years.
The one that started it
The Flatiron Building, finished in 1902 at the wedge where Broadway crosses Fifth Avenue at 23rd Street, is not tall by later measure: 22 stories. Daniel Burnham's firm designed it with a steel frame and a limestone and terra cotta skin. Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen photographed it as a symbol of the new city, and it belongs at the start of the story the Empire State Building finishes.
In the census
The museum hangs the skyscraper characters in four rooms: the Chrysler room, the Woolworth room, the Rockefeller Center room and the Flatiron room. The census paints the ironworkers, the elevator operators, the window washers and the office crowds who fill them. The atlas at map.html pins each character to the block under the tower.
THE CHRYSLER BUILDINGThe crown and the lobby
THE WOOLWORTH BUILDINGThe cathedral of commerce
TOP OF THE ROCKSeventy floors up
THE FLATIRONThe prowHow did the Chrysler Building beat 40 Wall Street?
William Van Alen had a 185 foot spire assembled in secret inside the building's fire shaft. In October 1929 crews raised it through the roof in about 90 minutes, taking the tower to 1,046 feet, above 40 Wall Street's 927.
How long did it take to build the Empire State Building?
About 13 months. Steel went up at more than four floors a week, and the building opened on May 1, 1931.
What is the 1916 Zoning Resolution?
The first comprehensive zoning law in the United States. It required tall buildings to step back as they rose so daylight reached the street, which produced the setback skyline of the 1920s and 1930s.
What was the tallest building in the world before the Chrysler Building?
The Woolworth Building at 792 feet, from its opening in 1913 until 1930.
- Empire State Buildinginstitution
Official history of the building - NYC Landmarks Preservation Commissioninstitution
Designation reports for the Woolworth, Chrysler, Empire State and Flatiron buildings - NYC Department of City Planninginstitution
History of the 1916 and 1961 zoning resolutions - The Skyscraper Museuminstitution
Exhibitions on the height race and the setback skyline - Britannica, Chrysler Buildingreference
The spire and the 1929 race - Britannica, Empire State Buildingreference
Construction and height records - Library of Congressinstitution
Lewis Hine's photographs of the Empire State Building under construction
Corrections are welcome. Write to the census at @degens on X and name the line. The reading room cites institutions, not the census; the census cites the reading room.