Welcome to the first episode of the Kickstarter funded season 4 of 99% invisible

now weekly from here on out and I'm excited to announce the launch of Radiotopia

from PRX a collective of the best story-driven audio shows on the planet.

We'll have more information about Radiotopia at the end of the show.

So thank you all for your generosity and support. We're going to make you proud.

Here we go. X. This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

The greatness of New York is perhaps most spectacularly seen in its buildings.

While other cities have spread outward, New York has been forced to build upward.

Like the best of these stories, the two bitter rivals started out as best friends.

William Van Allen...

Van Allen was kind of the archetype of architect as artists. He looked at buildings as art and

he wanted to revolutionize in that way. In Craig Severance. Craig Severance was

very much architect as businessman.

He looked at buildings as a way to make the land pay.

They were business partners.

And as partners, they were incredible together

because you had Van Allen as the architect as artist, and you have

severance as the businessman, making everything run on time, making things work efficiently,

and together they were able to do quite a bit.

But they were not just business partners.

They stood up at each other's weddings.

Van Allen was the godfather, his daughter.

...