40 Wall Street was the world's tallest building only for a
few weeks (possibly less) when it was surpassed by the Chrysler
Building. The competition between the two companies as well as the
2 architects (former partners) was covered by the press at the time
as well as in Ric Burn's series on New York.  At the time
40 Wall was the headquarters of the Bank of the Manhattan
Company, a predecessor to Chase Manhattan.  Donald
Trump now owns it.  So the answer to its date
as tallest in the same year as Chrysler.

Nancy Robertson

-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: 2/4/00 12:19 PM
Subject: Tallest NYC Buildings -- The Skyscapers, add'l

Jerry Tobin, Jim Maguire, NYHISTers & NYC-Rootsers,


In my earlier posting concerning the first skyscraper, I forgot to
include
its date.

The Tower Building located at 50 Broadway was completed in 1889 and it
lasted
only until 1914.  The Tower Building was 11 stories.  It was developed
and
owned by John Noble Stearns, a silk importer.  The architect was
Bradford Lee
Gilbert.

There are two pictures of the Tower Building (1890 and 1900)
accompanying a
New York TIME's article (Page 7, Real Estate Section, Sunday, May 5,
1996)
describing the building and the issues that had to be overcome in
building it

At the moment, I do not know when 40 Wall Street, the tallest skyscraper
immediately prior to the Empire State Building was completed.

A good resource (recommended by Christopher Gray, the TIMES
architectural
historian) is "Rise of the New York Skyscraper" by Bradford Landau and
Carl
W. Condit (Yale University Press, $50).


Regards,

Walter Greenspan