The Chrysler Building began with a broken partnership. In 1924 a magazine credited William Van Alen alone for work done with his conservative partner H. Craig Severance, and the split took more than a year of litigation. Severance went on to build 40 Wall Street, while Van Alen found his patron in 1928 when Walter Chrysler bought a Midtown project from developer William Reynolds for over $2.5 million and funded it personally as a monument to himself. Van Alen gave him a machine-age tower: the first American architectural use of 18-8 Nirosta stainless steel, a 31st floor frieze of hubcaps and fenders, winged Mercury radiator caps at the corners, and steel eagles on the 61st floor, with the frame rising four floors a week and no deaths during steelwork.

When Severance raised 40 Wall Street and declared victory, Van Alen struck back. A 185-foot, 27-ton spire had been assembled in four sections inside the hollow dome, and on October 23, 1929 crews hoisted and riveted it into place in 90 minutes, reaching 1,046 feet and becoming the first structure taller than 1,000 feet. The next day was Black Thursday. Chrysler then refused to pay Van Alen’s 6 percent fee, about $840,000, citing the lack of a signed contract and accusing him of taking bribes. Van Alen won in court but never received another major commission and ended his career teaching sculpture, while the building later sank into neglect before new owners restored it.

• The 1924 magazine article that ignored Severance and turned a firm into a feud
• How chromium in Nirosta steel forms a self-healing film that keeps the crown shining without polishing
• Critics who called the tower a stunt design and compared its silhouette to an upended swordfish
• The 1970s decline under Sol Goldman and Alex DiLorenzo, with 1,200 cubic yards of garbage in the basement
• Why the owners pay ground rent to Cooper Union instead of property tax, thanks to an 1859 state law