Before the age of the skyscraper, the spires of churches were the tallest buildings in America. Given the physical limitations of building in stone, few people thought it was possible to go any higher. But in the 1880s, steel-framed buildings enabled architects to dream of building into the clouds – and no city embraced the skyscraper more than land-strapped New York, where real estate developers raced to go higher than ever before and squeeze more dollars from their land.

Click through this gallery to see our collection of stunning images capturing the early days of New York’s skyscraper boom…