Chrysler Building Facts

Who says you can't learn stuff from watching Sandra Bullock movies? It's definitely better than watching MTV & wishing that everyone there would go to drug rehab as they need to. Anyways on Two Weeks Notice I heard about the story of the Chrysler building.

Apparently, there was a huge competition around 1928 in New York City to see who could design the world's tallest skyscraper. H Craig Severance was designing a rival project at 40 Wall Street. Severance claimed that he had the world's tallest building (omitting structures like the Eiffel Tower that aren't habitable). In response Van Alen built a 185 long spire that was secretly built inside the frame of the building. The spire was delivered in 4 sections & then hoisted onto the building's dome. This made the Chrysler Building the tallest building in the world...until a few months later when the Empire State Building surpassed it.