New York City Urbanization

Following a decade of a booming economy during the Roaring Twenties, New York suffered a period of economic collapse, which began with the Wall Street Crash on Black Tuesday in 1929, and continued with the Great Depression. The 1930s was a decade that was mostly consumed with financial depression that left most of New York City in shambles. Many Americans did not see the Depression coming, which resulted in mass panic that had a substantial effect on culture at the time. New York City, was at the heart of the Depression, was also as a place of high architectural advancement. Even in a crisis of economic failure, buildings such as the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, and the Rockefeller Center were all colossal structures that …show more content…
New York City was a major city, aside from Chicago, that led the way in the design of innovative buildings that advanced the approach to architecture throughout their cities respectively. The early 20th century saw a new wave of skyscraper construction that sought to construct buildings taller and taller. Chicago kept its existing style of palazzo-type buildings when they constructed their skyscrapers while New York City experimented further with tower design. Buildings such as the Singer Tower, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower and the Woolworth Building were all buildings constructed during this period in New York City that reached heights previously unimaginable and were commercially successful. Though with the success of the buildings, came the criticism that these buildings broke up the skyline of the city and left lower buildings and neighborhoods in a constant shadow. This led to the introduction of the 1916 Zoning Resolution in New York that stop these massive skyscrapers from preventing light and air from reaching streets below. The construction of the skyscrapers still continued though, as the post-WWI period saw a real-estate boom around the nation. In New York City, between 1919 and 1924, 17,000,000 square feet of new office space had been reconstructed throughout the city. This ensued through the economic …show more content…
Rockefeller decided to lease the 12 acres of land between 48th and 51st streets and Fifth and Sixth avenues that was owned by Columbia University. His intention in this purchase was to build a new home for the Metropolitan Opera House. Rockefeller himself was not a fan of opera that much but the idea of building a modern urban complex was very appealing to him. He was attracted to Egyptian styles and Gothic styles of architecture and did not like modern styles as costs could be kept down if superfluous decorations were omitted. Rockefeller had large plans that he planned to pursue but with the Stock Market crash of 1929, the Metropolitan Opera found themselves unable to provide the funds for the project and were forced to withdraw. This happened after Rockefeller had already signed the lease, leaving him with a setback to the project entirely. Rockefeller stated himself "It was clear that there were only two courses open to me. One was to abandon the entire development. The other to go forward with it in the definite knowledge that I myself would have to build it and finance it alone." This left him with the decision to continue the project, as he did not want to suffer a loss of all the money he had already spent. So, as planning continued, Rockefeller and the Metropolitan Square Corporation notified their architects that their plans from then on should be to build “a commercial center as beautiful as