I’ll do a short series of posts now showing what I saw every day on my way to work back in 1991. Picking up from yesterday’s post at Grand Central Terminal, we’ll walk south on Fifth Avenue.
After moving away from GCT, we are immediately confronted with another historic structure, this time housing a fabulous public institution, an example of what makes a group of people, or nation, civilized—the New York Public Library, Main Branch at Bryant Park. Like GCT and the Chrysler Building, seen in the previous post, it is just off 42nd Street. Also like Grand Central Terminal, it is of the Beaux-Arts style; it opened in 1911.
Due to this grouping of important structures, which represent both economic and cultural achievement, as well as a seemingly outdated notion of the common good, is why I personally consider this two- or three-block area the center of the universe.
Walking a bit further south, but well before we get down to 34th Street, we see the Empire State Building looming. This well-known structure [come to think of it, is there any more well-known?] opened in 1931; like the Chrysler, it also sports a wonderful Art Deco design, though less ostentatiously. At this time, in the early nineties, this building had such a commanding presence in the New York City skyline—due to its height, of course, but also because it stood fairly isolated in a low area between Midtown and the Battery, both of which are delineated by impressive clusters of skyscrapers. This presence has been lessened, of course, due to the construction boom that has occurred since—with (what I feel are) annoying pencil skyscrapers popping up left and right.
