New York City's Skyscraper Museum has published the results of a survey it made asking 100 architects, engineers, developers, critics, planners and others of their ilk to name their favorite New York skyscrapers. The clear first place winner was the Chrysler Building, with 90 votes, but silver and bronze were taken by buildings designed by Chicago firms. Mies van der Rohe's 1958 Seagram Building claimed 76 votes, and Daniel Burnham's 1903 Flatiron got 73, placing it in a tie with Cass Gilbert's Woolworth tower.
Although World Trade Center Kapellmeister David Childs scratched Mies completely off his list, the Seagram scored strongly across all categories, except for the critics. Four out of six turned up their noses and didn't include the Seagram anywhere in their top ten, and the New Yorker's Paul Goldberger make a point of listing it sixth. (To be fair, Goldberger's iconoclastic top choice was the frequently overlooked 70 Pine Street, a sleek Art Deco masterpiece from 1932, the last major skyscraper to be built in the financial district until 1961, that is again, after September 11th, the third tallest building in Manhattan.)
In early public voting, the Chrysler is again the overwhelming favorite, while the Seagram is dead last. You can vote your own choice here.
The website has posted a complete table of all of the 100 professional responses, which includes the picks of local architects Helmut Jahn and Adrian Smith, former native Mike Wallace, and adopted son The Donald, who remains in character by ignoring all 25 official nominees and picking only four buildings, which coincidentally turn out to all be Trump projects.
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