Empire State Building

The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in New York City. 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 in 1972, and is now once again the tallest building in New York after the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

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.^[3]

History

The present site of the Empire 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 the architectural firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, which produced the building drawings in just two weeks, possibly using its earlier design for the Carew Tower in Cincinnati, Ohio as a basis. 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 on March 17. 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.^[4]

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.”^[5] The building would not become profitable until 1950.^[6]

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 9:49 a.m. on Saturday July 28, 1945, a B-25 Mitchell bomber 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.^[7] 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.^[8] 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.^[9] The fence around the observatory terrace was put up in 1947 after five people tried to jump over a three-week span.^[10] 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.^[11] The building was also the site of suicides in 2004 and 2006.^[12]

Features

The Empire State Building rises to 1,250 feet (381 m) at the 102nd floor, and its full structural height (including broadcast antenna) reaches 1,453 feet and 8 9/16th inches (443 m). The building has 85 stories of commercial and office space (2,158,000 square feet / 200,465 square meter) and an indoor and outdoor observation deck on the 86th floor. The remaining 16 stories represent the spire, which is capped by a now publicly inaccessible 102nd floor observatory, and atop the spire is an antenna topped off with a lightning rod. The Empire State Building is the first building to have more than 100 floors. The building weighs approximately 370,000 tons (330,000 metric tonnes). It 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 2,768,591 square feet (approximately 254,000 square metres).

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.^[3]

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.^[13] 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 in late 2004, the building stood in complete darkness for 15 minutes.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[14] 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 U.S. Open tennis tournament in late August and early September. It was even lit scarlet red twice for Rutgers University, once for an American football game on November 9th, 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.^[15]

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 Great Britain provided afterwards.

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, was arrested after attempting to parachute off of the 86th floor observation balcony. He had passed internal security disguised as an old person with a fat suit and latex mask, and was getting ready to make his jump wearing a parachute and video equipment when building security and the NYPD intercepted him after he had scaled up and over the iron suicide fence and arrested him as he was about to jump. 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.^{[16] [17]}

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 2005, 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: WFNY-FM 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, WNEW-FM 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.

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 1930's 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 Godzilla: Final Wars. the pterosaur Rodan flies over the Empire State Building then perches atop a nearby skyscraper with The Empire State Building in the background, then and howls at the moon before continuing his rampage on New York City eventually destroying the Statue of Liberty.

• In the season 2 (1988) episode The Incredible Shrinking Turtles of the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, Shredder uses an alien crystal, which fell down as an alien spaceship crashed on the Earth, to shrink down the Empire State Building into the size of a dollhouse. The people inside it are not affected by the shrinking, and have to escape to avoid being crushed as the building shrinks down.

• 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 film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow opens with a zeppelin docking at the building's mooring mast. Additionally, the building can be seen with King Kong scaling it in the background of one of the shots.

• "Terror in New York City,” an episode of the Supermarionation series Thunderbirds involves an attempt in 2026 to move the Empire State Building to a new location on tracks to allow for the redevelopment of midtown Manhattan. Ground subsidence beneath the tracks results in the building's collapse.

• In the 300th issue of Superman magazine, the Empire State building is refurbished during the early 1980s to reclaim the title of world's tallest building; rising 1000 stories.

• In The Chase, a 1965 serial from the William Hartnell-era of Doctor Who, the Doctor, Barbara Wright, Ian Chesterton and Vicki, fleeing through time and space with a group of Daleks in hot pursuit, arrive in their TARDIS time machine on the Observation Deck of the Empire State Building (thus avoiding the long lines). They leave shortly after arriving and shortly before the pursuing Daleks' time machine materializes. The Daleks, ignoring the view, also leave almost immediately.

• 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.”

• In Unbuilding, by David Macaulay, the building is bought and disassembled, to be reassembled halfway across the world as a corporate headquarters.

• In the 2003 Christmas-themed film Elf, Will Ferrell's father, Walter Hobbs, played by James Caan, works in a publishing company in the building called Greenway Press.

• In Star Trek: Enterprise, "Storm Front,” a two-part season 4 episode, had an alternate timeline in which the eastern side of the United States is being conquered by the Germans, with the aid of aliens. The opening teaser of part 2 shows a propaganda news reel with footage of Adolf Hitler visiting New York and the Empire State Building. The ESB is seen again in a CGI sequence near the end of the episode.

• In Futurama the setting takes place in the year 3000 in New New York City. Old New York is now underground and in ruins. The Empire State Building is never seen in the underground ruins, but it is seen on the Surface land of New New York. This implies that either the building was rebuilt or was simply taken from the ruins and was restored. The longest time the building was shown was in the episode "Anthology of Interest I,” huge Bender falls on the Empire State Building which pierces through the robot while his two arms destroy two fantasy neighboring buildings, the Empire State Building comes out undamaged. He says before dying: "Oooh... who put this in here?"

• In the video games Spider-Man 2 and Ultimate Spider-Man, players can explore, swing from and climb Manhattan skyscrapers, including the Empire State Building. The Empire State Building in Spider-Man 2 is the tallest structure you can find.

• The pulp hero Doc Savage had his headquarters on the 86th floor of a 'New York City skyscraper.' It was repeatedly implied that this was the Empire State Building, though in real life, the 86th floor is the observation deck.

• In the animated series Transformers, the Empire State Building is stolen by the Decepticons and modified to resemble a building similar on the Transformers homeworld as part of Megatron's plan in City of Steel. It is eventually restored back to its former self at the end of the episode.

• The building can be built as a landmark in both Sim City 4 and Sim City 3000.

• An episode of Inspector Gadget featured Gadget in New York City, and a part featured him getting his assignment from Chief Quimby on top of the Empire State Building, with Quimby disguised as King Kong.

• In rapper Lloyd Banks' first video "On Fire,” the party shown is in the Empire State Building.

• The building is featured on the cover of British band Oasis's fourth studio album Standing on the Shoulder of Giants.

• There was a scene there in the 1986 film Yogi's Great Escape.

• In the 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die, the opening shot after the gun barrel logo features the Empire State Building in the New York skyline as the camera zooms into the United Nations Headquarters where a British agent ambassador is assassinated during a General Assembly simulation.

• In the 2002 movie The Time Machine Alexander Hartdegen, a scientist and time traveler, uses his time machine and travels to the year 2030. Upon his arrival at the futuristic New York, many noticeable structures, such as the New York Public Library and the Empire State Building, are visible.

• In the 2004 movie The Day After Tomorrow New York was going through a series of devastating storms, including heavy rain, snow storms, and a storm surge. When the city encountered a deep freeze, many buildings including the Empire State Building were turning pale white as the cold settled to the ground, shattering windows as it descended.

• In the video game Super Monkey Ball 2, the Empire State Building can be seen in the background of World 4 (Inside The Whale).

• In the video game Twisted Metal 2, the Empire State Building along with the Chrysler Building can be seen in the background of the New York City level.
• The Discovery Channel show Mythbusters tested the urban myth "If you drop a penny off the top of the Empire State Building, by the time the penny hits ground level, it is going fast enough to inflict leathal injury or a crater into the sidewalk."

• In Rick Riordan's book, The Lightning Thief, Mount Olympus, the modern-day home of the Greek gods, is said to be above the Empire State Building.

• In the computer game Tycoon city: New York, the building can be built.

• In the first trailer released for Grand Theft Auto IV, which appears to be set in Liberty City (a fictional earth-based city for New York City), a representation of the Empire State Building is briefly shown.

Similar skyscrapers

The Torre Latinoamericana in Mexico City looks very similar to the Empire State Building, including setbacks and antenna. The main differences are the size and outer paneling—the Torre Latinoamericana is glass-paneled on the outside. Also of similar design are the Seven Sisters in Moscow (such as the main building of Moscow State University) and the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, Poland. The Williams Tower in Houston is a glass-architecture version of the design, and the entrance on the ground floor is very similar.

The Reynolds Building, headquarters for the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in Winston-Salem, North Carolina is said to be the prototype for the Empire State Building. The Carew Tower in Cincinnati, is also thought to be the basis of the tower, due to the similar design by the same architectural firm, Shreve, Lamb and Harmon Associates. Another tower thought to be an inspiration for the Empire State Building is the Penobscot Building in Detroit, Michigan, completed in 1928.

References

1. ^ Please note that the entire 10118 series of 9-digit ZIP Codes are assigned to the Empire State Building. Source: USPS.
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Kenneth T. Jackson: The Encyclopedia of New York City: The New York Historical Society; Yale University Press; 1995. P. 375-376.
3. ^ ^{a b} White, Norval & Willensky, Elliot; AIA Guide to New York City, 4th Edition; New York Chapter, American Institute of Architects; Crown Publishers. 2000. p.226.
4. ^ about.com – Empire State Building Trivia and Cool Facts
5. ^ [1] – NYT Travel: Empire State Building
6. ^ pbs.org – New York: A Documentary Film
7. ^ tms.org
8. ^ guinnessworldrecords.com
9. ^ iht.com
10. ^ Compass American Guides: Manhattan, 4th Edition. Reavill, Gil and Zimmerman, Jean P. 160.
11. ^ hytti.uku.fi
12. ^ nydailynews.com
13. ^ Lelyveld, Joseph. "The Empire State to Glow at Night", The New York Times, February 23, 1964.
14. ^ esbnyc.com
15. ^ espn.com
16. ^ broadcastingcable.com
17. ^ dsc.discovery.com

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

See also

• World's tallest free standing structure on land
• History of tallest skyscrapers

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