Editing Chrysler Building (section)

====Competition for "world's tallest building" title====
The same year that the Chrysler Building's construction started, banker [[Dover Corporation#Founding|George L. Ohrstrom]] proposed the construction of a 47-story office building at [[40 Wall Street]] downtown, designed by Van Alen's former partner Severance. Shortly thereafter, Ohrstrom expanded his project to 60 floors, but it was still shorter than the Woolworth and Chrysler buildings.<ref name="Gray 1992" /> That April, Severance increased 40 Wall's height to {{convert|840|ft|m}} with 62 floors, exceeding the Woolworth's height by {{convert|48|ft|m}} and the Chrysler's by {{convert|32|ft|m}}.<ref name="Gray 1992" /> 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building started competing for the title of "[[List of tallest buildings in the world|world's tallest building]]".<ref name="Davies y631" /><ref>{{cite web |author=Emporis GmbH |title=Emporis Data "...a celebrated three-way race to become the tallest building in the world." |url=http://www.emporis.com/building/the-trump-building-new-york-city-ny-usa |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120224222332/http://www.emporis.com/building/the-trump-building-new-york-city-ny-usa |url-status=usurped |archive-date=February 24, 2012 |access-date=September 27, 2010 |publisher=Emporis.com|postscript=none}}; {{cite web |title=The Manhattan Company – Skyscraper.org; "...'race' to erect the tallest tower in the world." |url=http://www.skyscraper.org/TALLEST_TOWERS/t_manco.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150515170003/http://skyscraper.org/TALLEST_TOWERS/t_manco.htm |archive-date=May 15, 2015 |access-date=September 27, 2010 |publisher=Skyscraper.org}}</ref>{{sfn|Reynolds|1994|p=281}} The [[Empire State Building]], on 34th Street and Fifth Avenue, entered the competition in 1929.{{sfn|Rasenberger|2009|pp=388–389}} The race was defined by at least five other proposals, although only the Empire State Building would survive the [[Wall Street Crash of 1929]].{{sfn|Stern|Gilmartin|Mellins|1987|p=612}}{{efn|These proposals included the 100-story [[Metropolitan Life North Building]]; a {{convert|1050|ft|adj=on}} tower built by [[Abraham E. Lefcourt]] at Broadway and 49th Street; a 100-story tower developed by the [[Fred F. French]] Company on Sixth Avenue between 43rd and 44th Streets; an 85-story tower to be developed on the site of the Belmont Hotel near Grand Central Terminal; and the Noyes-Schulte Company's proposed tower on Broadway between Duane and Worth Streets. Only one of these projects was even partially completed: the base of the Metropolitan Life North Building.{{sfn|Stern|Gilmartin|Mellins|1987|pp=610, 612}}}} The "Race into the Sky", as popular media called it at the time, was representative of the country's optimism in the 1920s, which helped fuel the building boom in major cities.{{sfn|Rasenberger|2009|pp=388–389}} Van Alen expanded the Chrysler Building's height to {{convert|925|ft|m}}, prompting Severance to increase the height of 40 Wall Street to {{convert|927|ft|m}} in April 1929.{{sfn|Reynolds|1994|p=281}}{{sfn|Tauranac|2014|p=130}} Construction of 40 Wall Street began that May and was completed twelve months later.<ref name="Gray 1992" />

In response, Van Alen obtained permission for a {{convert|125|ft|m|adj=mid|-long}} spire.{{sfn|Stravitz|2002|p=161}}{{sfn|Binder|2006|p=102}}{{efn|According to [[Robert A. M. Stern]], the spire was {{convert|185|ft}} long.{{sfn|Stern|Gilmartin|Mellins|1987|p=605}}}} He had it secretly constructed inside the frame of the Chrysler Building,{{sfn|Robins|2017|p=82}}{{sfn|Tauranac|2014|p=130}}{{sfn|Stern|Gilmartin|Mellins|1987|p=605}} ensuring that Severance did not know the Chrysler Building's ultimate height until the end.<ref name="Davies y631" /> The spire was delivered to the site in four sections.{{sfn|Stravitz|2002|p=161}} On October 23, 1929, one week after the Chrysler Building surpassed the Woolworth Building's height and one day before the [[Wall Street Crash of 1929]], the spire was assembled. According to one account, "the bottom section of the spire was hoisted to the top of the building's dome and lowered into the 66th floor of the building."<ref name="Gray 1992" /> Then, within 90 minutes the rest of the spire's pieces were raised and riveted in sequence,{{sfn|Stravitz|2002|p=xiii, 161}} raising the tower to 1,046 feet.{{sfn|Robins|2017|p=82}}{{sfn|Curcio|2001|p=426}}{{sfn|Cobb|2010|p=110}} Van Alen, who witnessed the process from the street along with its engineers and Walter Chrysler,{{sfn|Curcio|2001|p=426}} compared the experience to watching a butterfly leaving its cocoon.{{sfn|Stern|Gilmartin|Mellins|1987|p=605}}{{sfn|Cobb|2010|p=110}} In the October 1930 edition of ''[[Architectural Forum]]'', Van Alen explained the design and construction of the crown and needle:{{sfn|Curcio|2001|p=425}}<ref name="Skyscraper_Museum" />

{{blockquote|A high spire structure with a needle-like termination was designed to surmount the dome. This is 185 feet high and 8 feet square at its base. It was made up of four corner angles, with light angle strut and diagonal members, all told weighing 27 tons. It was manifestly impossible to assemble this structure and hoist it as a unit from the ground, and equally impossible to hoist it in sections and place them as such in their final positions. Besides, it would be more spectacular, for publicity value, to have this cloud-piercing needle appear unexpectedly.}}

The steel tip brought the Chrysler Building to a height of {{convert|1046|ft|m}}, greatly exceeding 40 Wall Street's height.{{sfn|Willis|Friedman|1998|p=14}}{{sfn|Robins|2017|p=82}} Contemporary news media did not write of the spire's erection, nor were there any press releases celebrating the spire's erection. Even the ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'', which had virtually continuous coverage of the tower's construction, did not report on the spire's installation until days after the spire had been raised.{{sfn|Miller|2015|p=258}}

Chrysler realized that his tower's height would exceed the Empire State Building's as well, having ordered Van Alen to change the Chrysler's original roof from a stubby [[Romanesque architecture|Romanesque]] dome to the narrow steel spire.{{sfn|Tauranac|2014|p=130}} However, the Empire State's developer [[John J. Raskob]] reviewed the plans and realized that he could add five more floors and a spire of his own to his 80-story building{{sfn|Tauranac|2014|p=131}} and acquired additional plots to support that building's height extension.{{sfn|Bascomb|2004|p=230}}<ref>{{cite news |date=November 19, 1929 |title=Enlarges Site For 1,000-Foot Building |work=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1929/11/19/107107719.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191102004515/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1929/11/19/107107719.pdf |archive-date=November 2, 2019 |url-status=live |access-date=October 24, 2017 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Two days later, the Empire State Building's co-developer, former governor Al Smith, announced the updated plans for that skyscraper, with an observation deck on the 86th-floor roof at a height of {{convert|1050|ft|m}}, higher than the Chrysler's 71st-floor observation deck at {{convert|783|ft}}.{{sfn|Tauranac|2014|p=131}}