American International Building - Tourist Attractions in New York City

The American International Building is a 66-story, 952 foot (290 m) tall building in Lower Manhattan in New York City. It was completed in 1932 during the New York skyscraper race, which accounts for its gothic-like spire-topped appearance, a popular architectural style at that time. It was the tallest building in Downtown Manhattan until the 1970s when the World Trade Center was completed. Upon September 11, 2001 it regained the status of the tallest downtown building. It is currently the fifth tallest in New York City, after the Empire State Building and Chrysler Building, and the fourteenth tallest in the United States.
The building is usually referred to simply as American International. It was previously owned by Cities Service Company and called the Cities Service Building; Cities Service sold it to the American International Group (AIG) when moving company headquarters to Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is now owned by AIG and used for that company's world headquarters, although Cities Service still maintains some offices in the building.


One of the most famous themes of the limestone-clad tower is a mountain with a snow cap. The building features an open air platform with an enclosed glass observatory above it on the 66th Floor, offering the best view of downtown from any building. Unfortunately, this observatory which was once public is now accessible only to executives and employees of AIG. The tower was originally and famously built with double-decker elevators that served two floors at a time to provide sufficient vertical service for the narrow tower and its limited elevator shafts. Soon afterwards, these elevators were removed because of their low popularity; however, the Citigroup Center adopted this same idea in the 1970s.

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