The ghost of a colonial road on the eastern side of the Chrysler Building

I live in NYC and I&#x27;m killing time at Grand Central reading this. I&#x27;m going to walk over literally right this moment to take a look, it&#x27;s just down the street.<p>EDIT: can confirm, here are two pics I just took: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;EqAyICA" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;EqAyICA</a>

Another colonial era street, which actually still exists, is Stone St. It was bisected by the construction of 85 Broad street, which was built on top of stone street. However the street actually continues THROUGH the lobby, which is the original cobble stones, and is still a public space (although you have to go through security to travel the original street). There are excellent bars and restaurants on the outdoor parts of the original stone street.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Stone_Street_(Manhattan)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Stone_Street_(Manhattan)</a>

Nothing to add about the article, but I think the Chrysler Building is the most beautiful skyscraper I’ve ever seen.<p>Somehow it only ranks 9th in the list of America’s Favorite Architecture[1]. Which I suppose has more to do with name recognition than anything else.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;America%27s_Favorite_Architecture" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;America%27s_Favorite_Archite...</a>

This is a link to a tag on the blog rather than the particular blog post. It should link here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;09&#x2F;15&#x2F;the-ghost-of-a-colonial-road-on-the-eastern-side-of-the-chrysler-building&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;09&#x2F;15&#x2F;the-ghost-...</a>

At some point, decades prior to construction, the road would have been vacated and either became a stand-alone parcel or (more likely) became part of the parcel directly to the east. You can probably assume that a fairly important&#x2F;large building was there in the late 1800s.<p>If the road still existed when the Chrysler Building was being planned, you would assume that NYC would have vacated it and made it part of that parcel. And then the Chrysler Building would have a perfectly rectangular base.

If you look at maps and satellite photos, boundaries that ceased to exist long ago are often quite visible today.<p>You can spot the borders of spanish land grants still in Los Angeles and North Orange County still for example. You&#x27;ll see an acute angle in an area that is otherwise a sea of grid.

Wow the side facing the East River closer to 42nd has an obvious attempt to paper the weird angle over. Whereas the 43rd side has three step backs in the elevation, the 42nd side has only 1. This gets the eventually gets the building to an even square profile.

I&#x27;ve just seen a good video about art-deco buildings and their comeback: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=5VNP9RYIS_E" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=5VNP9RYIS_E</a>

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Boston_Post_Road" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Boston_Post_Road</a>

I live near Lexington ave and 29th street, so I will definitely check this out.

Somehow none of the included pictures made obvious to me what the article was talking about, but the google maps view makes it very apparent.