What is Empire State Building?

Empire State Building
Empire State Building was the world's tallest building from 1931 to 1972.*
Preceded by	Chrysler Building
Surpassed by	World Trade Center (1972)
Information
Location	350 Fifth Avenue New York, New York 10118-0110 USA[1]
Status	Complete
Constructed	1929 – 1931 [2]
Height
Antenna/Spire	449 m (1,472 ft)
Roof	381 m (1,250 ft)
Technical details
Floor count	102
Floor area	254,000 m² rentable (2007) 2,768,591 sq. ft. External: 0.8 ha (2 acres)[2]
Companies
Architect	Shreve, Lamb and Harmon
Contractor	Starrett Brothers and Eken
*Fully habitable, self-supported, from main entrance to highest structural or architectural top; see world's tallest buildings and structures for other listings.

Empire State Building
(U.S. National Historic Landmark)
The Empire State Building The Empire State Building
Added to NRHP:	November 17, 1982 [3]
NRHP Reference#:	82001192

The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in New York City, New York on the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street. Its name is derived from the nickname for the state of New York. It stood as the world's tallest building for more than forty years, from its completion in 1931 until the construction of the World Trade Center North Tower topped out on December 23 1970. It is now once again the tallest building in New York, after the destruction of the World Trade Center in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The Empire State Building has been named by the American Society of Civil Engineers as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. The building and its street floor interior are designated landmarks of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, and confirmed by the New York City Board of Estimate.^[4] It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1986.^[5],^[6],^[7] The building is owned by Harold Helmsley's company and managed by its management/leasing division Helmsley-Spear.

History of the building

The present site of the Emprie State Building was first developed as the John Thomson Farm in the late 18th century. The block was occupied by the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in the late 19th century, and was frequented by The Four Hundred, the social elite of New York.

The Empire State Building was designed by Gregory Johnson and his architectural firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, which produced the building drawings in just two weeks, possibly using its earlier design for the R.J. Reynolds Tower in Winston-Salem, North Carolina as a basis.^[8] The building was actually designed from the top down.^[9] The general contractors were Starrett Brothers and Eken, and the project was financed by John J. Raskob. The construction company was chaired by Alfred E. Smith, a former Governor of New York.^[2]

Excavation of the site began on January 22 1930, and construction on the building itself started symbolically on March 17—St.Patrick's Day—per Al Smith's influence as Empire State, Inc. president. The project involved 3,400 workers, mostly immigrants from Europe, along with hundreds of Mohawk nation iron workers. According to official accounts, five workers died during the construction.^[10] Governor Smith's grandchildren cut the ribbon on March 1st, 1931.

The construction was part of an intense competition in New York for the title of the world's tallest building. Two other projects fighting for the title, 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building, were still under construction when work began on the Empire State Building. Both would hold the title for less than a year, as the Empire State Building had surpassed them upon its completion, just 410 days after construction commenced. The building was officially opened on May 1 1931 in dramatic fashion, when United States President Herbert Hoover turned on the building's lights with the push of a button from Washington, D.C.

The building's opening coincided with the Great Depression in the United States, and as a result much of its office space went unrented. In its first year of operation, the observation deck took in over a million dollars, as much as its owners made in rent that year. The lack of renters led New Yorkers to deride the building as the "Empty State Building".^[11] The building would not become profitable until 1950. The famous 1951 sale of The Empire State Building to Roger L. Stevens and his business partners was brokered by the prominent lower Manhattan real estate firm Charles F. Noyes & Company for a record $51 million. At the time, the sale was the largest price ever paid for a single structure in real estate history.^[12]

The building's distinctive art deco spire was originally designed to be a mooring mast and depot for dirigibles. The 102nd floor was originally a landing platform with a dirigible gangplank. One elevator, traveling between the 86th and 102nd floors, was supposed to transport passengers after they checked in at the observation deck on the 86th floor.^[2] However, the idea proved to be impractical and dangerous after a few attempts with airships, due to the powerful updrafts caused by the size of the building itself. The T-shaped mooring devices remain in place, and a large broadcast antenna was added to the top of the spire in 1952.

At 9:40 a.m. on Saturday July 28 1945, a B-25 Mitchell bomber, piloted by Lieutenant Colonel William F. Smith who was flying in a thick fog, accidentally crashed into the north side of the Empire State Building between the 79th and 80th floors, where the offices of the National Catholic Welfare Council were located. One engine shot through the side opposite the impact and another plummeted down an elevator shaft. The fire was extinguished in 40 minutes. Fourteen people were killed in the incident.^[13] Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a plunge of 75 stories inside an elevator, which still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall recorded.^[14] Despite the damage and loss of life, the building was open for business on many floors on the following Monday.

The Empire State Building remained the tallest skyscraper in the world for a record 41 years, and stood as the world's tallest man-made structure for 23 years. It was surpassed by the North Tower of the World Trade Center in 1972, and the Sears Tower shortly afterwards. With the destruction of the World Trade Center in the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Empire State Building again became the tallest building in New York City, and the second-tallest building in the United States.

Over the years, more than thirty people have committed suicide from atop the building.^[15] The fence around the observatory terrace was put up in 1947 after five people tried to jump over a three-week span.^[16] In 1979, Elvita Adams jumped from the 86th floor, only to be blown back onto the 85th floor and left with only a broken hip.^[17] The building was also the site of suicides in 2004 and 2006. Most recently a lawyer committed suicide by leaping from the 69th floor on Friday, April 13 2007.^[18]

Features

The Empire State Building rises to 381 m (1,250 feet) at the 102nd floor, and including the 203ft pinnacle its full height reaches 443 m (1,453 ft and 8 9/16th in). The building has 85 stories of commercial and office space (200,465 m²/ 2,158,000 sq. ft.) and an indoor and outdoor observation deck on the 86th floor. The remaining 16 stories represent the art deco tower, which is capped by a 102nd floor observatory, atop the tower is the 203ft pinnacle on which, broadcasting equipment of all kinds covers much of, the lightning rod at the very top is the highest point on the building. The Empire State Building is the first building to have more than 100 floors. It also has over 100 bathrooms.

The Empire State Building has 6,500 windows, 73 elevators and there are 1,860 steps from street level to the 102nd floor. It has a total floor area of approximately 254,000 m² (2,768,591 sq. ft.). The base of the Empire State Building is about 0.8 ha (2 acres). The building houses 1,000 businesses, and has its own zip code. As of 2007, approximately 20,000 employees work in the building every day, making the Empire State Building the second largest single office complex in America after The Pentagon. The building was completed in one year and 45 days. The building’s original sixty-four elevators are located in a central core. Today, the Empire State Building has 73 elevators in all, including service elevators. It takes less than one minute, by elevator, to get to the 86th floor, where an observation deck is located. The building has 70 miles of pipe, and 2,500,000 feet of electrical wire.^[19] The building weighs approximately 330,000 Mg (370,000 tons). The Empire State Building cost $40,948,900 to build.



Unlike most of today's high-rise buildings, the Empire State Building features a classic façade. The modernistic stainless steel canopies of the entrances on 33rd and 34th Streets lead to two-story-high corridors around the elevator core, crossed by stainless steel and glass-enclosed bridges at the second floor level. The elevator core contains 67 elevators.^[4]

The lobby is three stories high and features an aluminum relief of the skyscraper without the antenna, which was not added to the spire until 1952. The north corridor contains eight illuminated panels, created by Roy Sparkia and Renée Nemorov in 1963, depicting the building as the Eighth Wonder of the World alongside the traditional seven.

Long-term forecasting of the life cycle of the structure was implemented at the design phase to ensure that the building's future intended uses were not restricted by the requirements of future generations. This is particularly evident in the over-design of the building's electrical system.

Floodlights

In 1964, floodlights were added to illuminate the top of the building at night, in colors chosen to match seasonal and other events, such as Christmas.^[20] After the eightieth birthday and subsequent death of Frank Sinatra, for example, the building was bathed in blue light to represent the singer's nickname "Ol' Blue Eyes." After the death of actress Fay Wray (King Kong) in late 2004, the building stood in complete darkness for 15 minutes.^[21]

The floodlights bathed the building in red, white, and blue for several months after the destruction of the World Trade Center, then reverted to the standard schedule.^[22] Traditionally, in addition to the standard schedule the building will be lit in the colors of New York's sports teams on the nights they have home games (orange, blue and white for the New York Knicks, red, white and blue for the New York Rangers, and so on). The building is illuminated in tennis ball yellow during the US Open tennis tournament in late August and early September. It was even lit scarlet red twice for Rutgers University, once for a football game on November 9 2006, when they played the University of Louisville in what would result in the biggest win in university history, and again on April 3 2007 when the women's basketball team played Tennessee in the national championship game.^[23]

In June 2002, during the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, New York City illuminated the Empire State Building in purple and gold (the monarchical colors of the Royal House of Windsor). New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that it was a sign of saying thank you to HM The Queen for having the National Anthem of the United States played at Buckingham Palace after the September 11, 2001 attacks, as well as the support the United Kingdom provided afterwards.

The building has also been known to illuminate purple and white in honor of graduating students from New York University.

The New York Mets beat the New York Yankees in the May 18-20 Subway Series 2 games out of 3, and had the spoil of having the building bathed in Orange and Blue on Monday, May 21.

The building's owners also declared their intention to light the building in green for three days in honor of the Islamic holiday of Eid ul-Fitr on October 12, 2007. The lighting, a first for the Muslim holiday, is intended to be an annual event.

Observation decks

The Empire State Building has one of the most popular outdoor observatories in the world, having been visited by over 110 million people. The 86th floor observation deck offers impressive 360-degree views of the city. There is a second observation deck on the 102nd floor that is open to the public. It was closed in 1999, but reopened in November 2005. Completely enclosed and much smaller; it may be closed on high-traffic days.

On April 27 2006, daredevil Jeb Corliss, who was one of the stuntmen on the Discovery Channel series Stunt Junkies, attempted to parachute off of the 86th floor observation balcony. He passed internal security disguised as an elderly person with a fat suit and latex mask and scaled up and over the iron suicide fence. He was preparing to jump wearing a parachute and video equipment when building security and the NYPD intercepted and arrested him. He faces several felony charges, including endangerment of his own life and others around. Subsequently, Discovery Networks denied it had given Corliss any permission to attempt the stunt, noting they require their production companies to obtain permits and permissions from local authorities before any filming. The network then fired him from Stunt Junkies and gave him a lifetime ban from appearing on any other Discovery Networks project.^{[24] [25]}

Broadcast stations

New York City is the largest media market in the United States. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, nearly all of the city's commercial broadcast stations (both television and FM radio) have transmitted from the top of the Empire State Building, although a few FM stations are located at the nearby Condé Nast Building. Most New York City AM stations broadcast from just across the river in New Jersey.



Broadcasting began at Empire on December 22, 1931 when RCA began transmitting experimental television broadcasts from a small antenna erected atop the spire (no longer a space reserved for dirigibles, after being proven impractical). They leased the 85th floor and built a laboratory there, and—in 1934—RCA was joined by Edwin Howard Armstrong in a cooperative venture to test his FM system from the Empire antenna. When Armstrong and RCA fell out in 1935 and his FM equipment was removed, the 85th floor became the home of RCA's New York television operations, first as experimental station W2XBS channel 1, which eventually became (on July 1, 1941) commercial station WNBT, channel 1 (now WNBC-TV channel 4). NBC's FM station (WEAF-FM, now WQHT) began transmitting from the antenna in 1940. NBC retained exclusive use of the top of the Empire until 1950, when the FCC ordered the exclusive deal broken, based on consumer complaints that a common location was necessary for the (now) seven New York television stations to transmit from so that receiving antennas would not have to be constantly adjusted. Construction on a giant tower began. Other television broadcasters then joined RCA at Empire, on the 83rd, 82nd, and 81st floors, frequently bringing sister FM stations along for the ride. Multiple transmissions of TV and FM began from the new tower in 1951. In 1965, a separate set of FM antennas were constructed ringing the 102nd floor observation area. When the World Trade Center was being constructed, it caused serious problems for the television stations, most of which moved to the World Trade Center as soon as it was completed. This made it possible to renovate the antenna structure and the transmitter facilities for the benefit of the FM stations remaining there, which were soon joined by other FMs and UHF TVs moving in from elsewhere in the metropolitan area. The destruction of the World Trade Center necessitated a great deal of shuffling of antennas and transmitter rooms in order to accommodate the stations moving back uptown.

As of 2007, the Empire State Building is home to the following stations:

• TV: WCBS-TV 2, WNBC-TV 4, WNYW 5, WABC-TV 7, WWOR-TV 9 Secaucus, WPIX-TV 11, WNET 13 Newark, WNYE-TV 25, WXTV 41 Paterson, WNJU 47 Linden, and WFUT-TV 68 Newark
• FM: WXRK 92.3, WPAT-FM 93.1 Paterson, WNYC-FM 93.9, WPLJ 95.5, WQXR-FM 96.3, WQHT-FM 97.1, WSKQ-FM 97.9, WRKS-FM 98.7, WBAI 99.5, WHTZ 100.3 Newark, WCBS-FM 101.1, WQCD 101.9, WWFS 102.7, WKTU 103.5 Lake Success, WAXQ 104.3, WWPR-FM 105.1, WCAA 105.9 Newark, WLTW 106.7, and WBLS 107.5.

Empire State Building Run-Up

The Empire State Building Run-Up is a running race from ground level to the 86th floor observation deck that has been held annually since 1978. The race covers a vertical distance of 1050 ft (320m) and takes in 1,576 steps. The record time is 9 minutes and 33 seconds, achieved by Australian professional cyclist Paul Crake in 2003^[26][27], a climbing rate of 6593 ft (2010 m) per hour.

In popular culture

• Perhaps the most famous popular culture representation of the building is in the 1933 film King Kong, in which the title character, a giant ape, climbs to the top to escape his captors. In 1983, for the 50th anniversary of the film, an inflatable King Kong was placed on the real Empire State Building. However, a mouse chewed through it one day, partially deflating the ape. It also needed a constant supply of air, and was never fully inflated.
• In 2005, a new version of King Kong was released, set in a re-creation of 1930s New York City, including a final showdown between Kong and the bi-planes atop a greatly detailed Empire State Building. (The retro-dating of this remake stands in contrast to the 1976 remake of King Kong, which was set in then-modern times and held its climactic scene on both towers of the (now-destroyed) World Trade Center instead of the Empire State Building.)
• In the movie Independence Day, the building is ground zero when an alien spaceship destroys New York City. This depiction was a homage to a similar SF invasion movie scene described in the science fiction short story "Publicity Campaign" by Arthur C. Clarke.
• Andy Warhol's 1964 silent film Empire is one continuous, eight-hour shot of the Empire State Building at night, shot in black-and-white. In 2004, the National Film Registry deemed its cultural significance worthy of preservation in the Library of Congress.
• In the 400th issue of the Comic The Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker visits the observation deck of the Empire State Building with his Aunt May, who has just been released from hospital, and says that she used to visit the building frequently with her late husband Ben Parker during their courtship. She also chooses this time to reveal that she had known about Peter Parker's dual identity as Spider-Man all along and that she was proud of him. After her death, in the same issue, Spider-Man is seen at the top of the building in many issues that followed.
• The observation deck was the designated site for romantic rendezvous in the films Love Affair, An Affair to Remember, and Sleepless In Seattle. It was also the location of a phony Martian invasion in an episode of I Love Lucy.

• The building can be seen in various shots of the Spider-Man film series, especially in the third film when Spider-Man is trying out his new black suit.
• The building has a cameo role in the 1946 cartoon Baseball Bugs. Fitting the cartoon's theme, the skyscraper is labeled the "Umpire State Building.?
• The building can be seen in the beginning of the 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die as the camera pans into the UN Headquarters, where the MI6 agent and British ambassador Dawes is killed by one of the assassins of Dr. Kananga during an assembly.
• The Discovery Channel show Mythbusters tested the urban myth "If you drop a penny off the top of the Empire State Building will it kill someone or put a crater in the sidewalk?" By the time the penny hit the ground it is going roughly 65mph (terminal velocity for an object of its mass and shape), which is NOT fast enough to inflict lethal injury or put a crater into the sidewalk.
• The Empire State Building is a buildable landmark in the popular city simulation computer games Sim City 3000 and Sim City 4
• The 1964 movie Fail-Safe designates the Empire State Building as ground zero for a nuclear attack.

References

Further reading

• The Empire State Building Book, by Jonathan Goldman, St. Martin's Press, 1980.
• Unbuilding, by David Macaulay, Houghton Mifflin, 1986.
• The Empire State Building - The making of a landmark, by John Tauranac, Scribner, 1995.
• Construction: Building the Impossible, by Nathan Aaseng, The Oliver Press, Inc., 2000.
• Empire: A Tale of Obsession, Betrayal, and the Battle for an American Icon, by Mitchell Pacelle, Wiley, 2002
• Higher: A Historic Race to the Sky and the Making of a City, by Neal Bascomb, Doubleday, 2003
• Building The Empire State, edited by Carol Willis, Norton, 1998.

See also

• World's tallest free standing structure on land
• History of tallest skyscrapers
• List of skyscrapers
• List of tallest buildings in New York City
• List of tallest buildings in the United States
• List of tallest buildings by U.S. state

External links

• Empire State Building, official Web site
• Lighting Schedule
• Empire State Building Trivia
• The Construction of the Empire State Building, 1930-1931, New York Public Library
• Live Webcam
• 3D model of the building for use in Google Earth
• VIVA2, The Skyscraper Museum's online archive of over 500 construction photographs of the Empire State Building.
• Empire State Building in the Structurae database

Preceded by Chrysler Building	World's tallest structure 1931—1954	Succeeded by KWTV Mast
Preceded by Chrysler Building	World's tallest freestanding structure on land 1931—1967	Succeeded by Ostankino Tower
Preceded by Chrysler Building	Tallest building in the world 1931—1972	Succeeded by World Trade Center
Preceded by Chrysler Building	Tallest Building in New York City 1931—1972	Succeeded by World Trade Center
Preceded by World Trade Center	Tallest Building in New York City 2001 – present	Incumbent

•  • [ e] Supertall skyscrapers
Current:	Aon Center (Chicago) • AT&T Corporate Center • Baiyoke Tower II • Bank of America Plaza • Bank of China Tower • Burj Al Arab • The Center • Central Plaza • Chrysler Building • CITIC Plaza • Emirates Office Tower • Emirates Towers Hotel • Empire State Building • Eureka Tower • First Canadian Place • International Finance Centre • JPMorgan Chase Tower • Jin Mao Building • John Hancock Center • Kingdom Centre • Menara Telekom • New York Times Building • Nina Tower • Petronas Twin Towers • Q1 • Sears Tower • Shimao International Plaza • Shun Hing Square • Taipei 101 • Tuntex Sky Tower • Two Prudential Plaza • U.S. Bank Tower
Under construction:	23 Marina • Abraj Al Bait Towers • Airlangga Residences • Al Hamra Tower • Al Rajhi Tower • Al Yaquob Tower • Almas Tower • Bank of America Tower • Burj al Alam • Burj Dubai • Burj Dubai Lake Hotel & Serviced Apartments • Busan Lotte Tower • Chicago Spire • China World Trade Center Tower 3 • City Hall and City Duma • DAMAC Heights • Doha Sport City Tower • Dubai Towers - Doha • Elite Residence • Emirates Park Towers • Faros del Panam • Federation Tower • Freedom Tower (World Trade Center Tower 1) • Gate of Kuwait • Guangzhou Twin Towers West Tower • The Index • International Commerce Centre • JW Marriott International Finance Centre • Mag 218 Tower • Marina 101 • Mercury City Tower • Minsheng Bank Building • North Bund Tower • Northeast Asia Trade Tower • Ocean One • Ocean Heights • One Island East • Parcel 12 • Park Hyatt Tower • Pearl River Tower • Pentominium • Princess Tower • Rose Rotana Suites • Shanghai World Financial Center • Shenzhen Nikko Tower • Sky Tower Dubai • Songdo Incheon Towers • Square Capital Tower • Tianjin International Trade Centre • The Marina Torch • Torre Gran Costanera • Trans National Place • Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago) • Vision Brisbane • Waterview Tower • Wenzhou World Trade Center

•  • [ e] New York City Historic Sites
NRHP: Manhattan • Brooklyn • Queens • Staten Island • Bronx • • • NHL: New York State
NYC: Manhattan • Brooklyn • Queens • Staten Island • Bronx

•  • [ e] U.S. National Register of Historic Places
History of the National Register of Historic Places Property types Historic district Contributing property
List of entries National Park Service

•  • [ e] Popular visitor attractions in New York City
Brooklyn Bridge • Central Park • Empire State Building • The Met • MoMA • Rockefeller Center • Statue of Liberty • Times Square • United Nations • Whitney

Coordinates: