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Title: Higher: A Historic Race to the Sky and the Making of a City by Neal Bascomb, TBA, Richard M. Davidson ISBN: 1-4025-5601-2 Publisher: Recorded Books Unabridged Pub. Date: September, 2003 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 7 List Price(USD): $29.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Great history of a great city's towers
Comment: As a NYC resident I love this city and its unique history, and this book is perfect for people like me. Bascomb makes 1929 come to life and the intriguing little-known tales he tells about the city's most famous buildings are terrific. I read it in just a couple of days, I was that into it. I highly recommend this to anyone who likes New York, is fascinated by skyscrapers, or just loves a ripping good yarn.
Rating: 5
Summary: "They seem to be springing up like asparagus tips..."
Comment: About a month ago I read "Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center" by Daniel Okrent. If you are like me and can't get enough of NYC history, Neal Bascomb's "Higher" makes a wonderful companion piece. The subject is similar (massive construction projects), as is the timeframe (1920's-1930's). Mr. Bascomb's book goes into detail concerning the construction of 3 skyscrapers - the Chrysler Building, the Manhattan Company Building, and the Empire State Building. Mr. Bascomb's book works on several levels: as a straight narrative detailing the complexities of putting up super-large buildings; as a collection of mini-biographies of people integral to the story -including Walter Chrysler, and the architects William Van Alen and Craig Severance (former partners who had had a falling out); and as a cultural/social history of NYC as the Roaring Twenties end and the Great Depression begins. The author drives home the point that form and function follow personality and willpower. The beauty of the Chrysler Building is that it is not just another skyscraper. It reflects the vision of William Van Alen (and Walter Chrysler, who took an active interest in the project - looking at hundreds, if not thousands, of Van Alen's drawings and giving his input). Similarly, a man by the name of John Jakob Raskob ( with ties to General Motors, interestingly enough), by sheer force of will, managed to get the financiers to pony-up the money to put-up the Empire State Building even though the Depression had hit. Another "big theme" is that ego can sometimes overcome cool and calculated financial considerations. When Van Alen and Severance (Manhattan Company Building) realized they were in a "shooting for the stars-war" to build the tallest building, they did some things that made the number-crunchers quiver - adding on extra stories (which increases the need for elevator banks, services, etc. and decreases the percentage of rentable space) or adding on geegaws like the spire of the Chrysler Building, with its totally non-rentable area. Likewise, Raskob soldiered on with the Empire State Building even though many people told him he wouldn't be able to rent all that space during a financial downturn. (They were right. It opened with a 23% occupancy rate and was called the "Empty State Building." It didn't turn a profit until 1948.) The public relations war surrounding the 3 buildings provides an entertaining thread that runs throughout the book - when Severance realized that the spire of the Chrysler Building made it tallest, he countered with the argument that you should only count rentable space - which made the Manhattan Company Building higher. (The public didn't buy it. Taller is taller.) When Chrysler's people realized that within a year or so the Empire State Building would become a reality and would be the new number one, they went into "physical denial." They advertised their building as the biggest and the brightest, and pretended that rapidly growing structure on 34th street didn't exist. Sadly, Walter Chrysler didn't know, from an aesthetic standpoint, what he had. Once the Empire State Building was built, Chrysler lost interest in his own building. In his autobiography he only devoted 2 pages to the topic, and he nowhere mentioned Van Alen by name. He called him "the architect." Mr. Bascomb doesn't let the architectural critics of the time off the hook. Most critics yawned at the Chrysler Building - they didn't think much of it, and thought the spire was a useless frill. Poor Van Alen never got another major commission and had to hustle around trying to get minor building jobs from friends and relatives. Another fascinating part of this book is when Mr. Bascomb goes into detail concerning the actual construction process - how many workers were needed for the various projects, the types and amounts of materials, etc. The Empire State Building, whose construction was organized like clockwork by the Starrett brothers, was put-up at the incredible rate of 4 1/2 floors per week. 500 trucks a day delivered materials to the building site, and the steel beams being put into place had been manufactured at the Pennsylvania mills a mere 3 days before. (The beams were still warm when they got to 34th street.) Despite the speed of construction, safety was emphasized. 6 men died (their names are given, by the way) during construction of the Empire State Building, which was amazingly few considering the scale of the project. Finally, the book has 8 pages of interesting black-and-white photos of the time, including one of the famous photographer Margaret Bourke-White perched atop the eagle gargoyle on the Chrysler Building, getting ready to snap a shot. If you suffer from vertigo you may want to skip that photo, as well as the one of the photographer Jack Reilly hanging from the 72nd story steelwork of the Manhattan Company Building.....
Rating: 5
Summary: Beautifully written and a fascinating story
Comment: I came across this book over the weekend and picked it up for my dad's birthday. I started reading through it on the subway on the way home from the bookstore and could not put it down! I should admit that I don't normally read these kinds of books, but Bascomb does an amazing job of drawing you in with colorful descriptions of the times and characters involved in this truly incredible story of the skyscraper races during the 1920s. Yes, there was literally a race to be the tallest building in the world -- complete with a photo finish just in time for the stock market to crash! If you have any interest in New York, history, engineering, architecture, or just love a great story -- check it out. One of the best things I've picked up in a long time.
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Title: Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center by Daniel Okrent ISBN: 0670031690 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 25 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: City in the Sky : The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center by James Glanz, Eric Lipton ISBN: 0805074287 Publisher: Times Books Pub. Date: 12 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: New York Streetscapes: Tales of Manhattan's Significant Buildings and Landmarks by S. Christopher/Braley Gray, Suzanne Braley ISBN: 0810944413 Publisher: Harry N. Abrams Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Tall Buildings by Terence Riley, Guy Nordenson ISBN: 0870700952 Publisher: Museum of Modern Art, New York Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Devil in the White City : Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson ISBN: 0609608444 Publisher: Crown Pub. Date: 11 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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