Iconic

Despite my previous criticism of this kind of use of the words “aerial view” I absolutely love the early 1930s Wurts Brothers photo labeled “General View – Manhattan – Aerial view – Park Avenue – looking north”:

The spine of that line of skyscrapers is 42nd Street. The Chrysler Building on the far right is on the northeast corner of 42nd and Lexington Avenue; the Chanin Building next to it is at the southwest corner. The Lincoln Building (the widest of the group) is between Park and Madison Avenues on the south side of 42nd. And 500 Fifth Avenue (not the tower farthest left, but the one behind it) is at the northwest corner of 42nd and Fifth. This location of the cluster is based – depending on who you talk to, entirely or in part – on the presence of Grand Central Terminal, seen blocking the end of lower Park Avenue on the right. The tower behind Grand Central, at 45th Street and (upper) Park, was the headquarters of the New York Central Railroad, convenient to the station.

It’s worth pointing out that these were among the tallest buildings in the world when the photo was taken; if this was 1930, Chrysler was the tallest at 1046 feet. To put it another way, in 1930 Chanin was the seventh tallest building and it is literally across the street from Chrysler; Lincoln was the sixth tallest and is one block away. The word “cluster” feels almost inadequate for the intensity of this concentration. Construction of new tall buildings over the last 90 or 95 years, and the increase in height of the tallest skyscrapers, has blurred the meaning of this photo, but not destroyed it.