The Chanin Building and Pershing Square

Why is it significant?

Stand at the bustling intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue, facing the magnificent fifty-six-story Chanin Building. Completed in 1929 by the architectural firm of Sloan & Robertson for developer Irwin S.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Stand at the bustling intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue, facing the magnificent fifty-six-story Chanin Building. Completed in 1929 by the architectural firm of Sloan & Robertson for developer Irwin S. Chanin, the son of an impoverished immigrant painter who built an empire in Broadway theaters and skyscrapers, this tower serves as an architectural hymn to American ambition. Look at the base of the building, where a spectacular bronze frieze wraps around the facade.

Sculptor René Paul Chambellan designed these extraordinary bas-relief panels to depict the City of Opportunity. Look closely at the stylized bronze figures depicting endurance, human vitality, and mechanical ingenuity, intertwined with abstract zigzags, cogwheels, and stylized plant blossoms. Inside the lobby, ornamental bronze radiator grilles celebrate the evolution of civilization from primitive sea life to modern aviation and skyscraper architecture. Chanin commissioned master decorative artisans to ensure that every elevator bank, ventilation grille, and bronze door handle reflected the restless kinetic energy of modern commercial triumph, elevating speculative office development into an extraordinary theatrical art form. Visitors gazing upon the shimmering bas-reliefs are immediately immersed in a gilded jazz-age celebration of technological ingenuity, where geometric zigzags and stylized gears honor the visionary architects and laborers who built the modern metropolis.

Now look west across the street toward Park Avenue, where the elevated roadway of the Pershing Square Viaduct sweeps around the grand facade of Grand Central Terminal. Built between 1917 and 1919 and designed by Warren & Wetmore, this graceful steel and granite bridge carried vehicular traffic seamlessly around the railway station, solving one of the most complex urban traffic puzzles in Manhattan history.

Notice how the massive neoclassical granite arches below the viaduct now shelter welcoming cafe terraces, where commuters pause for espresso amid the urban roar.

Walk north beneath the viaduct arches and enter the grand portals of the world's greatest railway cathedral.