Municipal Building in Manhattan is said to be the one that directly influenced Soviet architecture because Stalin really liked its look. What was called "City Beautiful" style in America in 1880s, with some alterations became known as Stalin's Empire, Stalinist Baroque, Socialist Classicism and simply as Mustachioed One's Wedding Cakes. In fact there are 7 buildings in Moscow that look very much like it.

These 7 sisters, as the buildings are known are shrouded in legend. I've heard that because of the lack of metal girders their walls are tremendously thick at the bottom. I've heard that they go down into the ground as far as they go into the sky, that there are old explosive self-destruct charges left over in some of them, that there is a huge monument to Stalin stored in one of the huge cellars. I've heard that the super secret "Metro 2", the secret subway running underneath them.

It's very ironic that Stalin picked this very American, capitalist style for his favorite buildings. Even more ironic is the way that the Objectivists lead by Ayn Rand picked an art aestetic art aestetic very similar to socialist realism, maybe with a little more art deco thrown in.

There is a common theme that runs through Ayn Rand's life and work - grand ideas and ideals not realized. Rand herself, was so obsessed with capital and investement, yet never invested much of her money. She opposed government monetary control, yet supported Objectivist #2 - Alan Greenspan himself.

Rand's work is full of references to things that never came to life. In "Fountainhead", Roark's boss, Henry Cameron, has a blueprint of an unbuilt skyscraper on his wall. Also in that book, there's the statue of "Industry" that never went in to the lobby of the fictional Cosmo-Slotnick Building, described as ".. a slender naked body of a man who looked as if he could break through the steel plate of a battleship ...".

I am endlessly fascinated with ghostly architecture. There's a special space in my mind's eye for ghost structures. The fictional ones, like Henry Cameron's Dana Building. The destroyed ones - the World Trade Center, the Singer Building, the old Penn Station, the Zeppelin mooring tower on top of the Empire State Building, and many more. And the ones that were never built - like the 8th Stalinist sister, the Palace of the Soviets, with a gigantic statue of Lenin so big and so high up top, that it needs shortened legs and torso to preserve the perspective.

The very real Municipal Building also has a giant statue on its top. While not as huge as the Lenin one, still, in New York it's only second to the Statue of Liberty in size. The statue by Adolf A. Weinman is called "Civic Fame". She battled wind, rain, snow and smog for almost a hundred years now. Her hand dropped through a skylight in a cafeteria on 26th floor in '36 and had to be repaired, and in '91 she took a helicopter ride up and down for cleaning and further restorations.

The model for "Civic Fame", Audrey Munson, had an even harder and more intense life. At the turn of the century she was a supermodel for sculptors and painters. In some sense that yielded a much more permanent record of her than most of today's supermodels will enjoy as there are literally dozens of important sculptures of her in New York City and around the world bearing her likeness. When the movies came about, she became an actress and entered history books as the first known woman to star in a movie naked. Well, tastefully, as an artist's model.

There's a book about her life, the Wikipedia article, this woman had the most unusual and tragic life. From the height of fame, through the court case involving a doctor who killed his wife to be with her, to financial destitution and into the mental asylum at 39 where she died at the age of 104 (!).

I wonder what she felt like standing in front of the Municipal building, knowing that it was her at the very top, with a shield and a crown.

The city website says that the crown has some dolphins on it, but even with this magnification I can't see them.

All I know is, now I just have to find as many instances of Audrey Munson in New York City's buildings and museums. That will be an interesting photographic project. I wonder if it's her on the Eastern Airlines Building mural.

My favorite skyscraper is a little obscure (like many of my favorite things). Today it's called the AIG building. When it was built, it was called the City Services Building or Sixty Wall Tower.

The soaring art deco tower was built for City Services Corporation, a company willed into being by one Henry L. Doherty. Doherty was a thoroughly Randian character. A self taught engineer, he started off by leaving school in 1882 at the tender age of 12 to go to work for a local gas company and went on to build one the biggest electric, oil and gas companies worth 1.3 billion in 1930. A technophile, Doherty traveled around the country in his personal train car with telephone and wireless equipment to keep in touch with his empire. Even his bed had phone connections, and electric fan, heating pads and electric motors that could move it through remote control swinging doors onto a porch of his penthouse apartment. He was a very good executive and salesman, but always took a title of Chief Engineer. He even applied for an official engineering license (as he didn't have any academic credentials). He did have 150 patents to his name and had many articles about oil refining and economy published.

The architectural firm of Clinton & Russel, Holton & George was given the task of designing City Services Building, but Doherty and his engineers had a hand in it too. The building's heating and air conditioning system was designed by City Services engineers, and Doherty himself suggested double-decker elevators, and terraces with aluminum railings. The building was planned as an embodiment of Doherty's vision.

The tower starts of as a chunky block wide "wedding cake". The reason for that is New York City zoning laws. NYC building had to have "setbacks" that would allow light to reach the ground. This was required so that the shadow of a skyscraper would not permanently block daylight on the street. But higher than a certain level you could build without setbacks though. And that's exactly what the architects did in this case: above the "wedding cake" is a tremendous tower.

The building is recursive: there are two columns shaped like it on it's sides.

When I was reading The Fountainhead", this is how I imagined the Dana Building. Coruscant City towers look very much like the City Services Building.

Doherty was planning to live in a penthouse apartment on top of the building. But his health gave out, and after spending some time in sanatoriums he died. Instead of the penthouse apartment an observation gallery was built.

City Services building also became the final masterpiece of it's architects, Clinton & Russel, Holton & George. No major work came their way after senior partners Clinton and Russel died, and then one of the junior partners, Holton died and George retired.

City Services Inc was hit hard by The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935: they were told that no company could sell or produce both oil and gas. They chose oil and became CITGO. The company moved it's headquarters to Tulsa selling City Services Building to AIG. AIG renovated the building, but closed off the lobby and the amazing observation deck to the public. Now the observation deck serves as an executive lounge. If you have some juice at AIG and could give me a tour... Well, that would make me happy. Well, it could happen.

Much of my information for this article came from a very good, but poorly organized book called Skyscraper Rivals. I could not find any books about Henry L. Doherty except a $350 "Principles and Ideas for Doherty Men", a compilation of his articles and letters.

Wegee was a big fan of City Services Building, a book "Weegee's People" chronicles the life inside the tower. When I get it, I'll write another article about the double decker elevators, the all-female redhead elevator operators and other marvels of the City Services Building.

Henry L. Doherty and the City Services Building (from "Skyscraper Rivals")

This is how I get to see the AIG building from a train window.

Coruscant City from Star Wars (image from http://www.wizards.com)