40 Wall Street the height of his project and then publicly claimed the title of the world's tallest building. (This distinction excluded structures that were not fully habitable, such as the Eiffel Tower.) Construction of 40 Wall Street began in May 1929 at a frantic pace, and it was completed twelve months later. In response, the Chrysler's architect William Van Alen obtained permission for a long spire and had it secretly constructed inside the frame of the building. The spire was delivered to the site in four different sections. On October 23, 1929, the day before the catastrophic Wall Street Crash of 1929
Wall Street office vacancy rates downtown which were "persistently high" and with some buildings "standing empty". The day of the stock market drop, October 20, was marked by "stony-faced traders whose sense of humor had abandoned them and in the exhaustion of stock exchange employees struggling to maintain orderly trading". Ironically, it was the same year that Oliver Stone's movie "Wall Street" appeared. In 1995, city authorities offered the "Lower Manhattan Revitalization Plan" which offered incentives to convert commercial properties to residential use. Construction of the World Trade Center began in 1966 but had trouble attracting tenants when completed. Nonetheless, some substantial