SKYSCRAPER RACE

Hokitika Guardian, 25 January 1930, Page 8

SKYSCRAPER RACE

ARCHITECTS’ RIVALRY. GREAT SPIRE BUILT IN LIFT SHAFT. Two skyscrapers just added to the new York skyline are the result of a thrilling race between two architects who were once partners. Rising 30 feet higher than the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the needlepoint spire of the new Chrysler building, in the central zone of New York, represents a dramatic stroke by which its designer won in the last lap. The two architects, .William Van Alen and H. Craig Severance, dissolved partnership some years ago. Van Alen was later commissioned to design the Chrysler building, and Severance to design another of the city’s towering monsters, the Bank of Manhattan building, in Wall St. Both saw in tins an opportunity to express their rivalry; each was determined to beat his former partner, and to rear the world’s tallest building. Wagers were laid on the outcome. The 'competitive fever was caught by the contractors and workmen, and each side racked its brains to best the other. The Bank of Manhattan and the Chrsyler building soared up With with breath-taking rapidity. Six storeys of the Chrysler had gone up before Severance made a start; but, to hasten work on the bank, an. astonishing feat was performed. The foundations of the new structure were laid before the house-wreckers hadi finished destroying the old. It was not long -before the Bank outstripped the Chrysler. Thirty stor-eys—forty-fifty. Up it went, until by November Ist. less than 14 months after work had started, it stood 850 ft. high, with 60 storeys, and 10 penthouses on top. i

(Penthouses, standing back from the face- of the building, are erected above the main roof line to accommodate water tanks, elevator machinery, and sometimes living quarters). The Chrysler Building was then 845 ft. high with 68 storeys. Severance then got- permission to increase the Bank of Manhattan to 71 storeys, and to plant on top a 50 ft. flagpole, which would bring the total height up to 925 ft. SWORN TO SECRECY. This, it seemed, would triumphantly .assert the Bank’s supremacy. Van Alen’s defeat appeared assured. But deep in the heart of the Chrysler Binding a survifise was being prepared. In a secret chamber constructed in the elvator shaft, between the 55th. and 68th. floors, workmen, sworn to confidence, were building a steel pinnacle, or spire, 185 ft. high. The ingenuity needed to build inside a lift shaft a spire equal to 12 storeys in height may be imagined, but even greater ingenuity was needed to propel it to- the top of the building and rivet it to a girder over the -elevator shaft.. To see this spire, unheralded and unexpected, emerge from inside the Chrysler Building was a thrilling experience. Appearing at the immense height of 845 ft. it looked like a rapier stabbing the clouds. At its tip was a misc-roscopic flag. The spire brought the height of the Chrysler Building up to 1030 ft. and thus Van Alen beat Severance,