New York - The Novel

Phantom, its bodywork by Brewster, who operated out in Queensboro, Long Island, was also painted silver. The next model, the Phantom II, had just come out, and if he got that next year, he’d have that body painted silver too.
    After being dropped at the office, he’d told Joe, the chauffeur, that he wouldn’t be needing him any more that day, so Joe was to take Rose out shopping. Joe was a good man, came from the Midwest somewhere, said he had an Indian grandmother. Always friendly, but only talked if you asked him to.
    But then he’d been called to a meeting up on Forty-second Street, to which he’d taken a taxi. And after the meeting was over, he walked along the street toward Lexington to get a little exercise. As he did so, he glanced up at the soaring skyscraper on the corner. Then he stopped and stared. Then his mouth fell open.
    “My God,” said William Master.
    You had to hand it to Walter Chrysler. He had style. When the automobile man had taken over the building project that now bore his name, he had insisted on daring art deco designs that incorporated images of wheels, radiator caps and much else besides. The top of the building, which was under construction now, consisted of a beautiful series of arches rising to a capstone, all to be covered in stainless steel. Supremely elegant, there would be nothing like it in the world when it was done.
    And then there was the question of height. The tallest building in the world, of course, was the Eiffel Tower in Paris. But the daring men of New York were getting close. A financier named Ohrstrom was building a soaring tower down at 40 Wall Street to compete with Chrysler, and word was that Ohrstrom’s building, if not quite so elegant, would be the taller of the two, rising above any other skyscraper in the city. A third building down at Thirty-fourth might also challenge for the crown, but work hadn’t started on that yet.
    Far above, at the top of the Chrysler Building, the pyramid of arches, still unclad, rose as a network of girders into the sky.
    But now, as William Master watched, something extraordinary was happening. Suddenly, from the center of the building’s peak, a metal framework tower began to push its way out. Foot by foot it was rising, like the section of a slender telescope. Ten feet, twenty, thirty. It must have been concealed inside the main structure, and now, by some mechanism, it was being raised. Forty feet, fifty now, it was pushing its way up toward the clouds. There was a Stars and Stripes attached to the tip, streaming out in the high wind. William had never seen anything like it. Stranger still, as he glanced around the busy street, no one else seemed to have noticed.
    How much higher could it be going? He couldn’t imagine. The clouds were racing across the sky above it—God knows what the wind must be up there—but the great spike kept on rising. A hundred feet, a hundred and twenty, a hundred and fifty, higher and higher.
    When it stopped at last, he reckoned it must have added nearly twohundred feet to the building. And now riveters were swarming like ants around its base, fixing the huge spike in place.
    Finally, he saw a single, tiny figure climbing up the narrow framework. He just kept going until he was right up there with the streaming flag, halfway to heaven. What was he doing? He was letting down a plumb line, checking that the skyscraper was standing straight. After a little time, satisfied that the thing was as it should be, he came down.
    Master continued to observe, fascinated. Only when he tried to glance at his watch, and found he had such a crick in his neck that he could hardly look down, did he realize he’d been staring up for nearly an hour and a half.
    He didn’t mind. He’d just witnessed a piece of history. Cunning Chrysler, by this brilliant ploy, must have added the best part of two hundred feet to the height of his building, taking his rivals completely by surprise and vanquishing them. Master wasn’t certain, but he was pretty sure the Chrysler Building had just surpassed the Eiffel Tower itself.
    How fitting that it should be so. New York was the center of the world. The market was soaring. The skyscrapers were soaring. It was the spirit of the age.
    Late as hell, but not caring at all, he hailed a cab and went cheerfully downtown to his office.
    As he approached the door, he passed a little old fellow who was leaving. Maybe in his sixties, Italian by the look of him. He’d encouraged