Themes in American History

The race to the sky

New York City is known as the  city of massive skyscrapers that can be recognized by anyone all around the world. But which city in the U.S was competing against NYC for the race towards the sky? Chicago is one city that was late to compete against the Chrysler Building and the Empire State building but now holds the Sears Towers as the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. The first skyscraper was built in NYC (1873) called the Equitable Life Building which stood at a total of 8 stories high. Chicago then took the lead in 1889 with the Auditorium Building which was 17floors high. The early twentieth century officially marked the start of the Race to the Skies with the construction of the Chrysler Building on 42nd St. The building was built in an architectural style known as Art Deco and is still profoundly recognized today for its artistic design both portrayed in its interior and exterior parts of the building. The building was completed in 1930 as the worlds tallest building beating New York’s very own 40 Wall Street building as well as the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Chicago at this time had no competition whatsoever against New York City in the Race to the Skies. New York was competing themselves for the world’s tallest building and exactly a year later after the completion of the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building was completed as the Worlds Tallest building. Chicago finally caught up in the race by racing forward to complete the Sears Towers in 1973 as the World’s Tallest building surpassing the World Trade Center. It took Chicago 40 years to finally surpass NYC. The Sears towers is no longer called the same name but now called the Willis Towers. Although Willis Tower is the world’s tallest building, NYC still has proclaimed as the world’s champion in the Race to the Skies because of the amount of buildings that was built in the early 1900’s with the title of “skyscrapers”. The Empire State building as well as the Chrysler building as well as the fallen WTC building were masterpieces of NYC as well as an internationally recognized piece of history.

 

 

 

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