Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. Intended as symbols of bedrock permanence and power, they survive instead as giant tombstones-many of them beautiful. Under the turbulent gales of capitalism, the glass, steel, and stone of America's pyramids have proved far more durable than the corporate Pharaohs who built them. Steel Building), it was also, fortunately, an exception. Demolished in 1968 to make way for the boxy U.S. The decoration on American Piano Co.'s 57th Street headquarters was the medal it had won at an 1867 Paris competition-taunting rival Steinway down the block. 'This is why we're powerful.' The black-and-gold crown of American Radiator Co.'s New York headquarters glowed like a radiator coil at night. But the corporate trophy building was above all an identity statement. New construction techniques, soaring land prices, and competition for light and air all conspired to push them higher. But with the push of a button in 1913, President Wilson illuminated a new Gothic spire whose 792 feet would remain unchallenged until Walter Chrysler entered the picture in 1930: Woolworth had built a tower of his own.Įgo wasn't the only force summoning these structures from the ground. would briefly eclipse Singer's 612 feet with its 700-foot clock tower on Gotham's Madison Square. 'Wherever I went,' Frank Woolworth said after a trip to Europe, ' asked about the Singer Building and its famous tower.' Metropolitan Life Co. If he was among the first to tap the power of tall buildings, it was the 1908 Singer Building-whose slender New York tower marked the high point of the sewing-machine company's fame-that was the first trophy skyscraper. Real-life publisher Joseph Pulitzer knew none of that, of course, when his 1890 World Building placed him higher than the spire of New York's Trinity Church and, more important, above the Tribune Tower next door. Many of Houston's landmark skyscrapers-Transco Tower, Republic Bank Center, Texas Commerce Tower-have been renamed for companies that still exist. Chicago has no Sears in its Sears Tower, no John Hancock in its Hancock Tower, no Ward's in its Montgomery Ward Tower. Across the street from the Time Warner Center is the 1969 Gulf & Western Building, which boldly declared the Age of the Conglomerate until its conversion to Trump International Hotel & Tower. A quick architectural tour suggests that when trophy buildings go up, companies' fortunes go down. Together these buildings announce the dawn of the Media Age-yet the very fact of their construction could indicate that the companies' bright noon has already passed.

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