Chrysler Building

Wow... cool. Nice show piece.

Great catch, Spence.  I love these NYC buildings.  The Flat Iron buildings is my favorite but I love them all.

Art

Spence,

   Very nice pick up, best of health to you buddy.

PCRR/Dave

You were very fortunate to purchase this at such a wonderful price. This building is one of the best D56 has done in their Christmas in the City series, take this from someone who really knows.

Great looking building.  Congratulations Spence!

- Mike

great looking building, especially to a life long mopar man. Great to see you posting again Spence!

Very nice Spence. I'm glad you're feeling better.

I just wish Chrysler still owned it. (I heard somewhere that they don't so I could be wrong about this).

My arrived days before Christmas, it's my first D56 building. As per same tip here on the Forum, I was able to snag it for $133., shipping inclusive. I waited until New Years eve to open and display, it hasn't been off since. I suspect this is the beginning of what may prove to be an expensive problem. 

Looks fantastic, Spence!

Well, the corporation never owned it. This is from Wikipedia:

The east building wall of the base out of which the tower rises runs at a slant to the Manhattan street grid, following a property line that predated the Commissioners' Plan of 1811. The land on which the Chrysler Building stands was donated to The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 1902. The land was originally leased to William H. Reynolds, but, when he was unable to raise money for the project, the building and the development rights to the land were acquired by Walter P. Chrysler in 1928.Contrary to popular belief, the Chrysler Corporation was never involved in the construction or ownership of the Chrysler Building, although it was built and designed for the corporation and served as its headquarters until the mid-1950s. It was a project of Walter P. Chrysler for his children.

The ownership of the building has changed several times. The Chrysler family sold the building in 1953 to William Zeckendorf, and in 1957 it was purchased by Sol Goldman and Alex DiLorenzo, and owned by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. The lobby was refurbished and the facade renovated in 1978–1979. The building was owned by Jack Kent Cooke in 1979. The spire underwent a restoration that was completed in 1995. In 1998, Tishman Speyer Properties and the Travelers Insurance Group bought the Chrysler Building and the adjoining Kent Building in 1997 for about $220 million (equal to $320 million in 2014) from a consortium of banks and the estate of Jack Kent Cooke. Tishman Speyer Properties had negotiated a 150-year lease on the land from Cooper Union and the college continues to own both the land under the Chrysler Building and the building itself. Cooper Union's name is on the deed.

In 2001, a 75% stake in the building management contract was sold, for US$ 300 million (equal to $400 million in 2014), to TMW, the German arm of an Atlanta-based investment fund. On June 11, 2008 it was reported that the Abu Dhabi Investment Council was in negotiations to buy TMW's 75% economic interest, and a 15% interest from Tishman Speyer Properties in the building, and a share of the Trylons retail structure next door for US$ 800 million. On July 9, 2008 it was announced that the transaction had been completed, and that the Abu Dhabi Investment Council was now the 90% owner of the building.

Looks great Spence - that building and the Empire State Building are two of my favorite structures done by Dept 56.

Paul

"I was able to snag it for $133., shipping inclusive."

wow  and i thought i did good at 197.

It was interesting to watch the price fluctuate over the course of a few days, timing was everything. The same source is currently offering it at $220.01

Can't wait to see a picture of it on your layout.  On another note, have you ever had a Flat Iron steak?   I used to be able to get them locally, but no longer.  They were really good eatin'.  Bob S.

The Chrysler building's observatory...

The Chrysler Building’s seventy-first floor observatory was open to the public until 1945. The observatory featured a celestial motif, with sun rays painted on the walls, and Saturn-shaped lighting globes hanging from the ceiling.

Hi Spence • Yes, it will be a cool addition to your layout. The TV show called Modern Marvels on the History Channel, has a show called "The Chrysler Building".

That's a great one Spence, a fitting get well present!  

I agree, and the pictures posted above show how fine the original is. Get well fast Spence.

Looking good, Spence...and glad you are feeling better!  I ordered mine right after you that day.  I took mine out of the box and plugged it in and it is gorgeous.  Made sure the lights worked fine and then packed it away 'til next year.  Now I have 11 months to decide what to do with it.

Rick

Excellent find, enjoy! The Empire State Bldg.,Chrysler bldg,Flat Iron and Grand Central are among my favorites. I just wish I had the room to have them.

Looks very nice Spence. Keep the recovery going so you can get back down stairs to the trains soon. Glad you are at least well enough to start reading the forum and posting again. Good to see you back.

Looks real nice Spence!

Awesome looking building, especially in the dark with the lights on. Great deal too!

I hope it still exists!  Be a shame if someone remodeled it.

Hi Spence

Looks great !!!!!!!

Alex

I saw it by chance in the late 70s, it was in tough shape. My understanding is that it's gone, along with the "Cloud Club" on floors 65, 67, and 68. I expect everything looks more like this now...

I wonder what visits here with that view run? A crown for a crown?

MY favorite building.

That's a real shame!!!   It looked like it came from the Emerald City.

A few snaps of the Cloud Club...

This dinning room was intended for Chrysler executives. Note the glass frieze depicting auto workers...

This one was for Texaco, they had 14-floors at the time...

End of life...

It was beautiful, criminal what happened to it.  Too bad no one will restore it, as was done at Grand Central.  I doubt the new owners from Abu Dhabi have any interest in doing so.

Gorgeous building

That is a great model!  I've never seen one in the flesh.

Sharp look Dept 56 item.

Looks great on the layout as seen in others layout photos.

Nice to get some tall buildings with a compact base, and the lights really do set it off with a Christmas theme layout.

For any looking a cheaper option for a background building is the 3D puzzles available.

From $8 to $20

Do a search for Chrysler Building 3D Puzzle.

About 20 inches high.

There are also other puzzles of many other tall New York and other buildings that look good on the layout.

You can get micro lights strings of 50 bulbs or more on tiny wire string that look good wrapped around these buildings.

I used some of the tall puzzle buildings in the background on my Christmas layout and they look great.

That's a spectacular building, one of the finest examples of an Art Deco skyscraper ever built. I just wish I had room for it on my layout - I'd have grabbed one on sale for sure!

Spence, that gives you an incentive to get healthy so you can go down to the train room and set it up!

I love all of the D56 New York City Buildings. One issue I've had...I'm on my 2nd Chrysler Building, and for some reason for the second time, one of the 4 LEDs above the 4 gargoyles is growing dimmer. Definitely not lighting as intensely as it did when new and, more esthetically disturbing, not lighting as intensely as the other 3 corners. The second photo shows the issue.

Anyone else experience this?

Skip; did you return it to Dept. 56 directly?

Luckily, I have a great local retailer who exchanged the first one. Now that it happened again, I will contact D56 right after I take the layout down this year.

Wikipedia link:  Chrysler Building.

Spence,  I contacted Department 56 today and I got a Return Authorization Number. They said they probably can't fix it but they will replace it, although for some reason it may take a couple of months. I will return it as soon as I take down the layout. I'm okay with that. But, I wonder if anyone else has anyone else experienced this problem? Seems strange that it happened to me twice with two different buildings and I haven't heard that it happened to anyone else.

Great building!

Peter

I got one as well from the Amazon sale.  Thanks to whoever it was that gave the head's up on the other Department 56 items on sale too as I picked up several of those as well at great prices.  I will have to remember to look out for these on sale next holiday season as well.

I was going to wait to try it out until next year, but hearing that people are having issues with them, I will definitely take it out the box and try it out. 

The only problem with getting this is now I need to buy other city buildings around the same stature to go along with it.  I know the Empire State Building is insanely expensive and so I assume the others are too (Flat Iron, Radio City, etc).  So I may just have to look for other larger city buildings that will go with this.  I do have the smaller Grand Central Terminal.

You know, I saw these puzzles in a store over Christmas and not once did it cross my mind to use them on a layout.  But they could go very well in the background.  You could maybe shine spotlights on them from the ground to give them light that way.  Some buildings would be better in that way than others.  I'm thinking like a clock tower or Eiffel Tower or something.  Put a single led light at the top spire but just use ground-level spotlights to light the rest of the building.  Put the real buildings towards the front.

Great, affordable idea to create a nice skyscraper scene.