Waldorf-Astoria Hotel

Abstract

WHEN THE German film director Fritz Lang arrived in New York Harbor in 1924, he was spellbound by the verticality of the city’s skyscrapers. These were eclectic buildings such as the Gothic Woolworth Building and the needle-like Beaux-Arts Singer Tower (since demolished), but in his mind’s eye, Lang transformed them into a city of modernistic towers. “I looked into the streets—the glaring lights and the tall buildings—and there I conceived Metropolis,” Lang recalled. (This story is now considered to be a bit of a Hollywood-type hyperbole, because Lang had the title and concept of the film before then, but the city’s influence on the set design cannot be discounted.) “I roamed the streets all day. The buildings struck me as a vertical curtain, glistening and very light, an opulent stage backdrop hung against a gloomy sky to dazzle, to distract, and to hypnotize.”