From Publishers Weekly
The 1920s "race" to build the world's tallest building has been extensively chronicled. A former literary agent and former St. Martin's editor, Bascomb centers his narrative on two architects, William Van Alen and Craig Severance, who schemed to outdo each other in the race to pierce New York City's skies with, respectively, the Manhattan Company Building at 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building on East 42nd Street-only to be beaten by a third team hired to construct the Empire State Building (at Fifth Avenue and 34th). While this story is most often told as a sentimental paean to "progress" rather than a bitter corporate feud, Bascomb gives his tale a fresh sense of capitalist drama in his evocation of the nascent worlds of skyscraper engineering, architecture and construction-and real estate speculation with returns projected at 10%. He imbues the former three with some terrific detail (including a 22-item list of how many trades, including mail chute installers and asbestos insulators, it took to build a skyscraper) that gives context to the players and incidental characters, including the five Starrett brothers (builders raised in Lawrence, Kans., who built 40 Wall Street), General Motors' financier John Jacob Raskob (the man behind the ESB), Walter Chrysler, New Yorker reviewer "T-Square," former governor Al Smith and many others. The occasionally intrusive cliches (the Starrett brothers "had building in their blood"), hyperbole (the '20s were "a decade gone mad") and familiar generalizations (the U.S. "finally came into its own" in that same decade) are excusable in a debut book, especially one chronicling an obsession with height and speed.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Though the desire to spike the landscape with ever-higher structures dates back millennia, skyscraper one-upmanship accelerated in the twentieth century. And while it continues today, never was the race so neck-and-neck as at the end of the Roaring Twenties in New York. Architect William Van Alen, commissioned by Walter Chrysler, found himself in direct competition with partner-turned-rival Craig Severance, architect for the Manhattan Company Building (now the Trump Building). Though the Chrysler was begun first, the Manhattan moved faster, and both groups soon were secretly revising plans--with construction underway. With its cloud-piercing spire, the Chrysler won the height race (although the Manhattan claimed the highest usable floor). The real winner was a late entrant: the Empire State Building. Bascomb's book is nicely rounded, exploring the finances and logistics of skyscraper building, from acquiring the land to riveting the steel; the benefits and drawbacks of height; and the personalities of the builders--all as he ratchets up the tension of the race. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
"As a builder of perhaps more skyscrapers than anyone, I know a lot about them; yet Neal's book is very informative. This is a great and fascinating read for anyone interested in architecture, history, and New York City."
-Donald J. Trump

"Neal Bascomb's HIGHER is a fascinating account of the bitter race between two 1930's Manhattan architects to build the world's tallest building and thereby set in place a significant part of the fabulous skyline that inspires us to this day. Full of intrigue, insider's detail, and rich characterization, HIGHER is delicious history with a human face--a must-read primer on how THE city came to be."
-Les Standiford, author of The Last Train to Paradise.

"In Higher, Neal Bascomb has captured the very engaging human drama of architects and entrepreneurs scheming and competing to build the tallest skyscraper in New York--and in the world. Their legacies still stand proud, the Chrysler and Empire State buildings being among the greatest artistic and structural engineering achievements of all time."
-Henry Petroski, author of Engineers of Dreams

"Characters and buildings alike come vividly to life in Neal Bascomb's account of ambition, greed and technical ingenuity during the Roaring Twenties. An enthralling tale, brilliantly told, of the greatest architectural adventure of the twentieth century."
-Ross King, author of Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling and Brunelleschi's Dome

"The great race to build the world's tallest building still continues in Asia, but nowhere was the gamble undertaken with such intense competition as New York in the twenties and thirties. Out of it came iconic structures that define the city's profile and inspire generations of designers. Neal Bascomb's exploration of the struggle for supremacy among the Chrysler, Empire State, and 40 Wall Street buildings reveals how strong personalities, powerful economic forces, and shifting design aesthetics influenced those who sought to dominate the sky in New York. In his compelling narrative each building comes to a different result, but their interdependence is compellingly documented and convincingly presented. Anyone interested in the three tall buildings that make New York special with want this book."
-Hugh Hardy, Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates LLP


Review
"As a builder of perhaps more skyscrapers than anyone, I know a lot about them; yet Neal's book is very informative. This is a great and fascinating read for anyone interested in architecture, history, and New York City."
-Donald J. Trump

"Neal Bascomb's HIGHER is a fascinating account of the bitter race between two 1930's Manhattan architects to build the world's tallest building and thereby set in place a significant part of the fabulous skyline that inspires us to this day. Full of intrigue, insider's detail, and rich characterization, HIGHER is delicious history with a human face--a must-read primer on how THE city came to be."
-Les Standiford, author of The Last Train to Paradise.

"In Higher, Neal Bascomb has captured the very engaging human drama of architects and entrepreneurs scheming and competing to build the tallest skyscraper in New York--and in the world. Their legacies still stand proud, the Chrysler and Empire State buildings being among the greatest artistic and structural engineering achievements of all time."
-Henry Petroski, author of Engineers of Dreams

"Characters and buildings alike come vividly to life in Neal Bascomb's account of ambition, greed and technical ingenuity during the Roaring Twenties. An enthralling tale, brilliantly told, of the greatest architectural adventure of the twentieth century."
-Ross King, author of Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling and Brunelleschi's Dome

"The great race to build the world's tallest building still continues in Asia, but nowhere was the gamble undertaken with such intense competition as New York in the twenties and thirties. Out of it came iconic structures that define the city's profile and inspire generations of designers. Neal Bascomb's exploration of the struggle for supremacy among the Chrysler, Empire State, and 40 Wall Street buildings reveals how strong personalities, powerful economic forces, and shifting design aesthetics influenced those who sought to dominate the sky in New York. In his compelling narrative each building comes to a different result, but their interdependence is compellingly documented and convincingly presented. Anyone interested in the three tall buildings that make New York special with want this book."
-Hugh Hardy, Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates LLP


Book Description
The 1920s was a decade of great ambition and nonstop exuberance, and no place on earth reflected the spirit of the times more than New York City. The heart of America’s commercial, financial, and cultural life, New York provided the perfect backdrop for a contest that brought all three into play—the construction of three buildings that embodied the aspirations of a powerfully emerging nation: the Chrysler Building, the Manhattan Company Building, and the Empire State Building.

At the heart of this race was an intense rivalry—a contest between William Van Alen and Craig Severance, two prominent New York architects, to take New York City’s skyline to literally unprecedented heights. Former friends and partners, Van Alen and Severance had split over artistic and business differences, and then set out to best each other. Severance, backed by old money, drew up plans for the Manhattan Bank Building downtown, a commission that fit well with his own classic tastes. Van Alen, meanwhile, was a creative genius who envisioned a bolder, more contemporary skyscraper. He found his ideal, larger-than-life patron in Walter Chrysler. The ensuing battle commanded daily attention—from breaking ground at the sites to a floor-by-floor race to reach the tallest heights—and involved a fascinating historical cast of characters, including New York’s leading politicians at the time, Al Smith and Governor Franklin Roosevelt.

In HIGHER, Neal Bascomb brings to life the excitement of the city in the final, heady days before the Great Depression. He creates a tale as suspenseful as the race itself—and as dramatic as an ingenious last-minute flourish that would briefly give one building the title not only of tallest in New York, but tallest in the world, before another monument to America rather than one man, soared even higher.


From the Inside Flap
The Roaring Twenties in New York was a time of exuberant ambition, free-flowing optimism, an explosion of artistic expression in the age of Prohibition. New York was the city that embodied the spirit and strength of a newly powerful America. 

In 1924, in the vibrant heart of Manhattan, a fierce rivalry was born.  Two architects, William Van Alen and Craig Severance (former friends and successful partners, but now bitter adversaries), set out to imprint their individual marks on the greatest canvas in the world--the rapidly evolving skyline of New York City.  Each man desired to build the city’s tallest building, or ‘skyscraper.’ Each would stop at nothing to outdo his rival.

Van Alen was a creative genius who envisioned a bold, contemporary building that would move beyond the tired architecture of the previous century.  By a stroke of good fortune he found a larger-than-life patron in automobile magnate Walter Chrysler, and they set out to build the legendary Chrysler building.  Severance, by comparison, was a brilliant businessman, and he tapped his circle of downtown, old-money investors to begin construction on the Manhattan Company Building at 40 Wall Street. 

From ground-breaking to bricklaying, Van Alen and Severance fought a cunning duel of wills. Each man was forced to revamp his architectural design in an attempt to push higher, to overcome his rival in mid-construction, as the structures rose, floor by floor, in record time.  Yet just as the battle was underway, a third party entered the arena and announced plans to build an even larger building.  This project would be overseen by one of Chrysler’s principal rivals--a representative of the General Motors group--and the building ultimately became known as The Empire State Building.
Infused with narrative thrills and perfectly rendered historical and engineering detail, Higher brings to life a sensational episode in American history. Author Neal Bascomb interweaves characters such as Al Smith and Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, leading up to an astonishing climax that illustrates one of the most ingenious (and secret) architectural achievements of all time.


From the Back Cover
"As a builder of perhaps more skyscrapers than anyone, I know a lot about them; yet Neal's book is very informative. This is a great and fascinating read for anyone interested in architecture, history, and New York City."
-Donald J. Trump

"Neal Bascomb's HIGHER is a fascinating account of the bitter race between two 1930's Manhattan architects to build the world's tallest building and thereby set in place a significant part of the fabulous skyline that inspires us to this day. Full of intrigue, insider's detail, and rich characterization, HIGHER is delicious history with a human face--a must-read primer on how THE city came to be."
-Les Standiford, author of The Last Train to Paradise.

"In Higher, Neal Bascomb has captured the very engaging human drama of architects and entrepreneurs scheming and competing to build the tallest skyscraper in New York--and in the world. Their legacies still stand proud, the Chrysler and Empire State buildings being among the greatest artistic and structural engineering achievements of all time."
-Henry Petroski, author of Engineers of Dreams

"Characters and buildings alike come vividly to life in Neal Bascomb's account of ambition, greed and technical ingenuity during the Roaring Twenties. An enthralling tale, brilliantly told, of the greatest architectural adventure of the twentieth century."
-Ross King, author of Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling and Brunelleschi's Dome

"The great race to build the world's tallest building still continues in Asia, but nowhere was the gamble undertaken with such intense competition as New York in the twenties and thirties. Out of it came iconic structures that define the city's profile and inspire generations of designers. Neal Bascomb's exploration of the struggle for supremacy among the Chrysler, Empire State, and 40 Wall Street buildings reveals how strong personalities, powerful economic forces, and shifting design aesthetics influenced those who sought to dominate the sky in New York. In his compelling narrative each building comes to a different result, but their interdependence is compellingly documented and convincingly presented. Anyone interested in the three tall buildings that make New York special with want this book."
-Hugh Hardy, Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates LLP


About the Author

Neal Bascomb is a former journalist and book editor. He recently participated in two documentaries on architectural history. A native of St. Louis, he now lives and writes in New York City. For more information about the author, please visit www.nealbascomb.com



Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER ONE



A Hunch, Then a Demand



NEW YORK



The heart of all the world am I!

A city, great, and grim and grand!

Man's monument to mighty man!

Superb! Incomparable! Alone!

Greater than ancient Babylon,

The giant walled! Greater than Tyre,

Sea-Queen! Greater than Nineveh,

Pearl of the East! Greater than Rome,

Stupendous reared, Magnificent!

Greater than Paris, city fey!

Greater than London, fog-enmeshed!

Greater than Venice! Vienna!

Or Petrograd! Greater than these!

That I am! Mark my high towers!

--Arthur Crew Inman



The lobster shift returned home from a long night of pouring drinks, driving taxis, scrubbing floors, or walking the beat on the mad city streets. A few bands still shouted and hollered in Harlem speakeasies, their lawbreaking patrons eased back in their chairs, glad not to have gone to bed on the same day they got up--the Mayor Jimmy Walker way of living high in the era of Prohibition. Liner ships cut through the fog toward the island of Manhattan, arriving from Liverpool, Rotterdam, Genoa, and a dozen other cities. On the waterfront, dockworkers threw back their coffees and stamped out their Lucky Strikes, ready for the cargo hauls from North Africa, Sumatra, Capri, and Costa Rica.

Downtown, milkmen left crates of bottles for the army of office clerks to drink that day. In the gray of dawn, the clanking of ash cans echoed through the streets. A horse-drawn cart turned the corner. At the fish market, mongers spun and heaved three-hundred-pound barrels of flounder onto handtrucks and took them away. The morning chill bit their wet hands. Ferries and tugs shuttled across the harbor. Valets and maids prepared for their blueblood bosses to awake. The newsboys wiped the sleep from their eyes and shouted their first headlines: "Rothstein Shot . . . Hoover in a Landslide . . . Get your paper . . . Two cents . . . Just two cents." It was November 5, the day before the 1928 presidential election between Al Smith and Herbert Hoover, for most New Yorkers simply another day in a decade gone mad.

In Fifth Avenue suites and tenement apartments across the city, alarm clocks rang a thousand rings. Time to chase another buck. Trains, buses, and cars approached the city; their passengers--perhaps today an actor from Poughkeepsie, a playwright from Chicago, a bank teller looking to hit it rich on Wall Street--bounced up and down on their seats as the sun struck gold on the Metropolitan Life Tower. A second later they shot underneath the Hudson River, the towers of New York lost to the darkness. As the sun lifted into the sky, a crowd, one thick swell of dissonant voices, headed for work. They slipped nickels into turnstile slots and waited for the IRT or BMT to come down the elevated rails or screech through the tunnel. Some rushed from ferries once they docked and the gates were pulled aside. One man passed an old friend, tipped his hat, and said "Good Morning" before hurrying on his way. No time to stop for a chat and catch up. Got to move. Got to go. Hawkers hawked their wares. Dynamite blasted. The ground shook. The first rivet thundered. Reporter and raconteur Damon Runyon knew what he was talking about when he said, "The bravest thing in New York is a blade of grass. This is not prize grass, but it has moxie. You need plenty of moxie in this man's town, or you'll soon find yourself dispersed hither and yon."

The morning sun slanted through the Prospect Park West apartment of William Van Alen in Brooklyn. Out his window the white oaks surrounding the Long Meadow were shedding their last leaves. Cars rumbled around Grand Army Plaza, some speeding despite the big round sign that read "Slow Up . . . What's Your Hurry?" Bankers and lawyers rushed toward the subway, passing mothers heading into the park with their children. In the crisp late fall day a slight breeze blew in from the northwest. Van Alen put on a fine wool suit and cinched the knot on his tie. Leaving his wife, Elizabeth, he headed out the door. It was not just another day for Van Alen; it was a big day, perhaps the most important of his life.

An architect differed from other artists: a musician could jab out a few notes with his horn, hear the pitch and tempo; a painter could draw a brush stroke across the canvas and see what she had done; a writer could finish a page, pull it from the typewriter, and read his words. An architect needed more to realize his vision. Van Alen could sketch his designs, order his draftsmen to work out the elevation details in quarter-inch scale, and have blueprints of the same made on fine linen paper that would last for years. But without an owner to finance his plans, a builder to order the steel and brick, and workers to connect the columns and beams hundreds of feet in the air, Van Alen had little more than lines on a page. Without a patron, he was like a composer with a great score and no orchestra.

Over the past two years, Van Alen had drawn countless sketches for the site at Forty-second Street and Lexington Avenue, sketches for a grand skyscraper to tower over Grand Central Station and all of midtown. Three weeks before, William H. Reynolds, the real-estate speculator behind the project and the man to whom Van Alen was under contract, had sold the site to the automobile man Walter Chrysler. With the lease's assignment, Reynolds informed Van Alen that his services were no longer required, neither to draft any more proposals nor to oversee the construction of a new building on the site. The architect insisted that he remained "ready, able, and willing" to continue the job, but this was now a decision for Chrysler, who owned the plans--to do with them (or not do with them) as he pleased. Regardless, Reynolds assured Van Alen that the new owner would honor the balance remaining on the hundred thousand dollars in fees due the architect.

Van Alen pressed for a meeting with Chrysler, motivated by something far greater than securing the remainder of the balance due him. The architect wanted his plans to be built in steel and stone, and Chrysler agreed to meet with him. Today was that day.

Chrysler was the kind of client architects fought over. He was rich, willing to break with tradition, and obviously had a point to prove. He would want a different design, something that distinguished his skyscraper from all the others sprouting up across the city. Although it was still unclear what kind of building would rise at 405 Lexington Avenue, the site teemed with activity. The tenants had moved out; the United Cigar store on the corner had shuttered its doors; and the wreckers had erected a fence around the building. Already demolition crews were tearing down the walls of the five-story office building there.

Anyone exiting Grand Central would hear the din of pneumatic hammers and foremen shouting, "All right, boys!" It wasn't just 405 Lexington; all of Forty-second Street appeared to be under construction. Derricks lifted another tier of columns on the fifty-three-story Chanin Building going up across the street. Down the block, J. E. R. Carpenter, an architect Van Alen had promoted for membership in the Architectural League, had designs for his own skyscraper: great lumbering trucks threaded their way through traffic to deliver materials to the future Lincoln Building.

Two blocks from Chrysler's site, Van Alen made his way toward his office on Madison Avenue, the same office he had occupied since the split with Severance four years before. When he arrived, the two ex-

Vassar College shot-putters, as a visitor once described Van Alen's secretaries, knew to keep away most callers. Sitting in his office before his meeting with Chrysler, the architect must have worried about what questions his potential client would ask. Was Van Alen willing to make significant changes to his original designs? Were he and his firm up to the task? Why shouldn't a more established firm get this plum commission or at least serve in an advisory capacity? How long would the whole operation take? Or maybe he just wanted to meet Van Alen and get a feel for him. But what if Chrysler asked him if he drove one of his cars? Van Alen would have to tell him it was not a Chrysler. He drove a car built by E. L. Cord, even though he had trouble with the clutch and often ground the gears. Chrysler had to understand that Cord offered the latest in styling. Or maybe he wouldn't understand. There was a reason Severance pitched all the clients when they were partners. Van Alen was too introspective and made a weak first impression.



Reynolds first hired Van Alen in 1921 when he was still working with Severance. The developer wanted a penthouse designed for the five-story building at 405 Lexington Avenue. Reynolds promised many improvements to the site, but carried few of them to completion. Despite a lack of results, Reynolds hired Van Alen yet again in March 1927, and again asked him to design something for 405 Lexington: this time, a forty-story hotel. Van Alen hired Chesley Bonestell, an illustrator who freelanced with a number of firms around town, to collaborate with him on the preliminary studies for the hotel. He fired up his factory of draftsmen to prepare for the detailed, scaled drawings they would make from his sketches. Several months later, however, Reynolds scrapped the hotel plans. He wanted an office building instead--a skyscraper.

He called Van Alen, and the two revised their contract for the new structure. The skyscraper was not to exceed sixty stories and would contain "stores and other improvements as may be required, such as banking offices, cafeteria, grill room, subway connection and all the appurtenances that may be necessary." Van Alen was to prepare the plans and specifications and confer with architect Robert Lyons on the initial sketches. The dry legal jargon fails to convey the opportunity this skyscraper presented to Van Alen, who wrote:

In designing a skyscraper there is no precedent to follow for the reason that we are using a new structural material, steel, which has been developed in America and is different in every way from the masonry construction of the past.

Structurally, and in their purpose, our tall buildings are wholly unlike any buildings of an earlier day. To apply to our tall office buildings, apartment houses and hotels the familiar architectural features characteristic of the comparatively low palaces, temples and churches that were built before the advent of steel as a building material, is not economical or practical, and it is artistically wrong since it is not truthful.

This skyscraper, described by Reynolds as "a fire-proof office building similar to such buildings as are competitive in the City of New York" was to be for Van Alen a statement of the truth. More importantly, he needed the commission, one that could catapult him to the top of his profession, as the Woolworth Building had Cass Gilbert.

Since severing his partnership with Craig Severance, Van Alen had floundered. Without his partner to score the big commissions, his designs of critical note were limited to a chain of Childs restaurants and a pair of show windows for stores. Meanwhile New York underwent a building boom the likes of which had never before been seen. Many of the architects Van Alen had known as draftsmen and studied with in Paris now enjoyed flourishing practices. Although the New Yorker would first say it several years hence, most in the architectural community knew already that "leading the New York modernists [are] Ralph Walker, Ely Jacques Kahn, and Raymond Hood. They are three little men who build tall buildings, and who probably rake into their offices more business than any other architects in the city . . . They eat and drink and lunch and confer constantly . . . They plan great projects. They lead the Architectural League . . . They are constantly publicized, interviewed, quoted. They dash to Boston. They race to Chicago. They have a glorious time." It was these three that newspaper journalists visited when they needed a quote on the essentials of good architecture--not Van Alen.

Of course, Reynolds cared as much for Van Alen's statement of truth and place in the architectural community as he did about the color of the architect's tie. Reynolds was a jack-of-all-trades and a master of only one: the art of self-promotion. Employment as a real-estate developer was a good match. Born and raised in Brooklyn, his first job entailed clearing the plaster and debris from the houses his father worked on as a carpenter. Reynolds studied law, but left before finishing to make his initial investments in real estate. In his first year, he earned over forty thousand dollars, a king's sum at the time. By his twenty-fourth birthday, Reynolds found himself elected to the state senate, the youngest member in Brooklyn history. Despite serving only a few years, he maintained the "senator" imprimatur throughout his life. He also worked as an oil promoter, copper mine owner, racetrack developer, amusement park operator, theatrical promoter, and proprietor of a trolley line and water company. Known for crooked dealings, true or purported, he was twice indicted by the courts, but never served any time in jail. The last charge, grand larceny, was overturned on appeal in March 1927.

Nearly bald, with eyebrows arched so perfectly they could have been painted, Reynolds was a tireless showman. His most notable achievement in real estate remained the 1903 development of Coney Island's Dreamland Park, featuring a tower with a hundred thousand lights, the largest dancehall in the country, and spectacles with titles such as "Fire and Flames" and "Trip to the Moon." In 1911 a few of the lightbulbs exploded on the Hell Gate attraction and eighteen hours later Dreamland Park smoldered in ashes. That same year Reynolds maneuvered his way into acquiring the lease on Lexington Avenue and Forty-second Street, which was owned by Cooper Union and had the benefit of being tax-exempt. Originally Reynolds signed a twenty-one-year lease with an annual payment of fifty-four thousand dollars a year in rent. Cooper Union approved of Reynold's alterations to the building on the site, except to say that "the flourishes in the two gables" should be toned down and made simpler. After the construction in 1913 of Grand Central Terminal, Reynolds shrewdly returned to Cooper Union's trustees to ask for an extension. Over the next fifteen years, Reynolds finagled revaluations, extensions, and options on the lease by pledging multimillion-dollar developments on the site, yet the showman's promises for the site remained as empty as the air above the five-story building.

Regardless, Van Alen sketched, studied, and modeled a skyscraper. Reynolds helped pay his bills, and the opportunity was too big to pass on simply because of impatience. Early in 1928, Van Alen started a game of one-upmanship with the developer of the Lincoln Building and its architect, J. E. R. Carpenter. Carpenter announced he would build a fifty-five-story skyscraper at the old Lincoln warehouse site across from Grand Central. Fellow designer and critic Kenneth Murchison chronicled Van Alen's next move in a leading architectural journal: "In a rich baritone voice, [he] sang something to the effect that only a block away he proposed putting up a fifty-six-story building! This, of course, made the Lincoln people perfectly furious so they proclaimed that they would probably make theirs sixty-three stories high, to which Mr. Van Alen said, 'Hold, men, we will make ours SIXTY-FIVE stories high!' " Carpenter backed down and Van Alen finished plans for a skyscraper one story less than he boasted.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
At the tail end of the 1920s, the Jazz Age was in full swing, and Americans experienced an unprecedented level of prosperity with no apparent end in sight. Though the Great Depression would soon wipe out many of those gains, three landmark buildings on the New York City skyline -- the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, and the Manhattan Company Building -- remain as tangible reminders of the enormous ambition and exuberance that characterized the era. Neal Bascomb expertly re-creates the stories of the men behind the building of these historic skyscrapers, all of whom were racing to make theirs the tallest in the world at the time, like 20th-century pharaohs competing for glory.

Bascomb profiles business and political leaders as Walter Chrysler, Al Smith, and FDR. But even more compelling is Bascomb's exploration of the long-simmering rivalry between William Van Allen and Craig Severance, former architectural partners who become locked in a captivating battle of deception and intrigue in order to eclipse the height of the Eiffel Tower and claim for their own creation the title of "world's tallest building." Through the fascinating biography of the buildings and the men whose singular vision and drive brought them to reality, Higher -- not unlike Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit -- ultimately tells the story of the character and the spirit of 20th-century America. (Winter/Spring 2004 Selection)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In 1924, in the vibrant heart of Manhattan, a fierce rivalry was born. Two architects, William Van Alen and Craig Severance (former friends and successful partners, but now bitter adversaries), set out to imprint their individual marks on the greatest canvas in the world -- the rapidly evolving skyline of New York City. Each man desired to build the city's tallest building. Each would stop at nothing to outdo his rival. Van Alen was a creative genius who envisioned a bold, contemporary building that would move beyond the tired architecture of the previous century. By a stroke of good fortune he found a larger-than-life patron in automobile magnate Walter Chrysler, and they set out to build the legendary Chrysler Building. Severance, by comparison, was a brilliant businessman, and he tapped his circle of downtown, old-money investors to begin construction on the Manhattan Company Building at 40 Wall Street.

From ground-breaking to bricklaying, Van Alen and Severance fought a cunning duel of wills. Each man was forced to revamp his architectural design in an attempt to push higher, to overcome his rival in mid-construction, as the structures rose, floor by floor, in record time. Yet just as the battle was under way, a third party entered the arena and announced plans to build an even larger building. This project would be overseen by one of Chrysler's principal rivals -- a representative of the General Motors group -- and the building ultimately became known as the Empire State Building. Infused with narrative thrills and perfectly rendered historical and engineering detail, Higher brings to life a sensational episode in American history. Author Neal Bascomb interweaves characters such as Al Smith and Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, leading up to an astonishing climax that illustrates one of the most ingenious (and secretive) architectural achievements of all time.

FROM THE CRITICS

The Washington Post

Bascomb is at his best situating his drama in a city and a nation on the cusp of greatness but also on the verge of financial collapse. Plans for the glorious landmarks were begun in an era of dizzying financial achievements, but they were finished after the 1929 crash, as capital vanished and demand for office space disappeared. — Grace Lichtenstein

Publishers Weekly

The 1920s "race" to build the world's tallest building has been extensively chronicled. A former literary agent and former St. Martin's editor, Bascomb centers his narrative on two architects, William Van Alen and Craig Severance, who schemed to outdo each other in the race to pierce New York City's skies with, respectively, the Manhattan Company Building at 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building on East 42nd Street-only to be beaten by a third team hired to construct the Empire State Building (at Fifth Avenue and 34th). While this story is most often told as a sentimental paean to "progress" rather than a bitter corporate feud, Bascomb gives his tale a fresh sense of capitalist drama in his evocation of the nascent worlds of skyscraper engineering, architecture and construction-and real estate speculation with returns projected at 10%. He imbues the former three with some terrific detail (including a 22-item list of how many trades, including mail chute installers and asbestos insulators, it took to build a skyscraper) that gives context to the players and incidental characters, including the five Starrett brothers (builders raised in Lawrence, Kans., who built 40 Wall Street), General Motors' financier John Jacob Raskob (the man behind the ESB), Walter Chrysler, New Yorker reviewer "T-Square," former governor Al Smith and many others. The occasionally intrusive clich s (the Starrett brothers "had building in their blood"), hyperbole (the '20s were "a decade gone mad") and familiar generalizations (the U.S. "finally came into its own" in that same decade) are excusable in a debut book, especially one chronicling an obsession with height and speed. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

It is a pity that this book had to wait till October for publication, as the publishers have missed out on a blockbuster of a summer read. Bascomb, an editor and agent in book publishing, brings a keen eye for fascinating detail to this architectural history and uses an active, engaging writing style to pull the reader along at a rapid pace. The major story is about the battle between two prominent architects, former friends and now professional rivals, Craig Severance and William Van Alen. Severance, a man with "classic" tastes and financed with "old money," draws the plans for the Manhattan Company Building and fights for his formal design to dominate the skyline of New York City. Van Alen, a man with bolder, more "modern" tastes, finds his ideal patron in Walter Chrysler, draws out his plans, and builds a more contemporary, soaring skyscraper. In the background, yet no less important, are the numerous stories of the construction workers, the frenetic press, and major politicians Al Smith and Gov. Franklin Roosevelt, all caught up in the frenzy of this monumental race. While readers will learn much about New York history, skyscraper architecture, and the power and importance of moneyed patronage, this reviewer is not proud to state that the greater joy came from being a witness to a race that determined who will dominate the world's most famous skyline. Recommended for public libraries.-Glenn Masuchika, Rockwell Collins Information Ctr., Cedar Rapids, IA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews