Commentary &Photos 15 Jun 2008 08:43 am
Abu Dhabi Honeymoon
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- This week we learned that Abu Dhabi Investment Council has made an $800 million bid to purchase a 75% stake in the Chrysler Building in New York. This iconic building may go out of the hands of American owners and give a Saudi Arabian firm a primary holding in the heart of the city.
Similar events happened in the 1980′s when Japanese investors bought into Rockefeller Center. The feeling back then was doom and gloom as we saw Radio City Music Hall fall out of the hands of local investors. Yet, not too much has really been affected (from the pedestrian’s point of view) as a result of that sale.
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Somehow this sale feels a bit personal in that I have an absolute love for this building. I often feel compelled to photograph it for no good reason and have compiled dozens of shots that look identical to all of the other shots I’ve taken of the building. However, this recent news event brought lots of interesting published photos of the site that are particularly interesting. Many of them aerial shots.
There was a period when the film, Bonfires of the Vanities, was in release. That movie centered a lot of its imagery around the Chrysler Building, and it was a bit like heaven. Closeups of those steel gargoyles filled the movie screen as did many other usually unnoticed bits of the building. To me, the second unit photography WAS the show.
___________(Of course, all photos enlarge by click them.)
on 15 Jun 2008 at 10:25 pm 1.Tim Rauch said …
anyone willing to invest in our city is good in my book…
on 16 Jun 2008 at 8:17 am 2.Stephen Macquignon said …
I bet you can get some nice photos from the
Top of the “Rockefeller Building”
http://www.topoftherocknyc.com/welcome/default.aspx
on 18 Jun 2008 at 1:18 pm 3.Mjolnir C. Hammer said …
The Abu Dhabi Investment Council is not a Saudi Arabian firm. It’s a branch of the government of the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi is the capitol city/emirate of the UAE) that invests government money.
Remember the whole Port Authority Buy-out controversy a few years back? The company at the center, Dubai Ports World, is based in another Emirate that is part of the UAE.
Why do I care to make this correction? I really don’t know.
*****It’s Hammer Time*****
on 18 Jun 2008 at 1:21 pm 4.Michael said …
Thanks for the correction. To be honest, it doesn’t really make a difference to me who owns it, as long as the building gets the loving care it deserves.
on 18 Jun 2008 at 4:00 pm 5.Jenny Lerew said …
My favorite Manhattan building-and probably my favorite of all buildings. Looking at it makes me feel happy.