Originally Posted by bachslunch (Post 3980162)

Does anyone have any advice about how to get inside to see the lobby of the Woolworth Building? If you try to these days, security guards are poised to aggressively and obnoxiously pounce on anyone trying to enter and see it, chasing folks off with squawks about this being private property.

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality (Post 4145286)

Originally Posted by GVNY (Post 3488716)

Even I must acknowledge the preeminence of the Chrysler Building as the most glorious skyscraper ever erected, a general opinion I have always agreed with (though disguised earlier within this particular thread).

However, the Woolworth Building, with its splendid ornamentation and extraordinary history (the loftiest skyscraper in the world, paid full in cash), is indeed one of the loveliest manifestations of a natural physical form for a soaring building.

Additionally, its towering base, previously derided in this thread as overbearing, maintains a height which I believe brought uniformity, harmony and architectural understanding to the burgeoning lower Manhattan skyline of the 1910s. The criticisms against the massing of the building, I feel, are further weakened by the Gothicized vertical bands that happily marry the base to its thinner, taller extension.