Trump Building, New York Live Cam

The green pyramid lit in the middle of the picture is the crown of 40 Wall Street, in the financial district of Lower Manhattan. The camera looks over the rooftops with One World Trade Center off to one side.

That building lost one of the shortest races in architecture. It was topped out in 1930 as the tallest in the world and held the title for about a month: the Chrysler Building had a spire assembled in secret inside its crown and raised it into place to take the record.

One World Trade Center, finished in 2014, is the tallest in the western hemisphere at 541 metres, a figure chosen to match the year of American independence in feet. The two stand less than two kilometres apart.