an initial thread on an annual october ‘open house new york’ weekend site:

http://www.ohny.org/

 

this first one is the chrysler building lobby (1930)

405 Lexington Ave/ 42nd St, New York

neighborhood: Midtown

 

website:

http://www.tishmanspeyer.com/properties/Property.aspx?id=43

 

mood music -- if you like  :mrgreen:

 

The three stories high, upwards tapering entrance lobby has a triangular form, with entrances from three sides, Lexington Avenue, 42nd and 43rd Streets. The lobby is lavishly decorated with Red Moroccan marble walls, sienna-coloured floor and onyx, blue marble and steel in Art Deco compositions. The ceiling murals, painted by Edward Trumbull and entitled, "Transport and Human Endeavor," depicts buildings, airplanes, and scenes from the Chrysler assembly line. The lobby was refurbished in 1978.

 

unfortunately, it’s rare that they let you in to hang around and photograph the lobby, even today security was jumpy!  :|

 

 

lexington avenue entrance

 

now that’s some marble!

 

ceiling mural

 

hey, who bumped me?  :laugh:

 

nervous security  :police:

 

el-la-va-tion!

 

thru the glare – chrysler building triva

 

more of the amazingly fancy pants marble

 

a side stairwell next to e43rd st

 

flashy and nonflashy mailbox  :wtf:

 

lobby lighting – muted is an understatement, it’s dark

 

time to run along to the next ohny site!

 

outdoor detailing

 

peek-a-boo  :clap:

 

more street views

 

*** I hope you enjoyed a rare lingering gawk at the chrysler building lobby courtesy of open house new york weekend – more sites to come ***

 

Not the biggest, but still the best!

I had a view of this from my office window when I was working in New York.  I miss it!  Coming out of the office at dusk when the lights were just turned on is an amazing view.

 

Not to hijack the thread, but here's a shot at dusk that made me stop and awe no matter how many hundred times I saw it... because Chrysler really is one the prettiest buildings in the world:

 

Such a pretty building.

geez, they didn't let you go to the top? what a gyp. I thought the point of the open house was to see stuff you normally couldn't. About ten years ago I was going to a dentist located in the spire of the Chrysler bldg. I remember how the walls curved at an angle, and looked down (toward Queens) while in the chair. Needless to say, amazing views. I think it was just two floors (?) down from the former Skyclub lounge (or whatever that was called) when the building first opened.

^ so free is a gyp? well i guess you saw what you wanted to see, but it sure wasn't the title to this thread -- lol!  :laugh:

 

but seriously, i would love to see that lounge, once in awhile you hear they are going to do something with it, but then nothing. must have really been something back in those deco-era great skyscraper race days...!

 

the cloud club

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Club

 

...The club did not admit women for decades, and was not open in the evenings.

 

The fortunes of the Cloud Club began to decline in the 1950s and 1960s with the defection of some members to the nearby Sky Club in the Pan Am Building (now MetLife Building) and Pinnacle Club in the Socony-Mobil Building, which were both newer and bigger. The whole Chrysler Building fell on hard times in the mid-1970s, and in 1977, Texaco, whose executives were then a mainstay of the Cloud Club membership, moved to Westchester. The Cloud Club closed for good in 1979, and various schemes to rehabilitate and reopen it never came to fruition.

 

Tishman Speyer, which took over the Chrysler Building in 1998 and painstakingly refurbished it, has leased the top two floors of the Cloud Club space to tenants, while the first floor of the club is still awaiting an occupant.

 

The Cloud Club is featured in Matthew Barney's Cremaster 3.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/26/garden/26cloud.html

 

 

 

My favorite building in the world.