Some people might think today--this miserable, if sunny, steambox day would be a great time to go to the Empire State Building.
For myself, I think not. I wish I had thought of this on the Fourth of July or something, but too late now..
I remember my first real like look at the Empire State Building, when I was I guess seven and a half years old. As we drove into NYC, it stood there in polluted air looking rather leaden and not have as grand as I had imagined it would like!!
I have been up to the two observation decks of the Empire State several times since then, some of these trips MUCH more exciting and fun than others. It seems to me it was much a combination of how I felt that day and whom I went with as much as anything else!!
Anyway, to begin with I am giving the link to a wonderful video tour of the building, which I really insist you watch before all else. I was done two years ago when the building had just completed some major renovations...
OK, this article from Wikipedia is actually pretty damn brief considering some of their novel length entries, and I follow it with--what else-- reviews from Yelp!
The Empire State Building is generally thought of as an American cultural icon. It is designed in the distinctive Art Deco style and has been named as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. 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.[11] It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1986.[8][12][13] In 2007, it was ranked number one on the List of America's Favorite Architecture according to the AIA.
The building is owned by the 2800 investors in Empire State Building Associates L.L.C.[14] The Empire State Building is currently undergoing a $550 million renovation, with $120 million spent in an effort to transform the building into a more energy efficient and eco-friendly structure.[15] Receiving a gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating in September 2011, the Empire State Building is the tallest LEED certified building in the United States.[16]
History
The site of the Empire State Building was first developed as the John Thompson Farm in the late 18th century.[17] At the time, a stream ran across the site, emptying into Sunfish Pond, located a block away. Beginning in the late 19th century, the block was occupied by the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, frequented by The Four Hundred, the social elite of New York.The limestone for the Empire State Building came from the Empire Mill in Sanders, Indiana which is an unincorporated town adjacent to Bloomington, Indiana. The Empire Mill Land office is near State Road 37 and Old State Road 37 just south of Bloomington. Bloomington, Bedford and Oolitic area are known as the limestone capital of the world. It is a point of local pride that the stone for the Empire State building came from there.
Design and construction
The Empire State Building was designed by William F. Lamb from the architectural firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, which produced the building drawings in just two weeks, using its earlier designs for the Reynolds Building in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and the Carew Tower in Cincinnati, Ohio (designed by the architectural firm W. W. Ahlschlager & Associates) as a basis.[18][19] Every year the staff of the Empire State Building sends a Father's Day card to the staff at the Reynolds Building in Winston-Salem to pay homage to its role as predecessor to the Empire State Building.[20] The building was designed from the top down.[21] The general contractors were The Starrett Brothers and Eken, and the project was financed primarily by John J. Raskob and Pierre S. du Pont. The construction company was chaired by Alfred E. Smith, a former Governor of New York and James Farley's General Builders Supply Corporation supplied the building materials.[3] John W. Bowser was project construction superintendent.[22][23][24]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 iron workers, many from the Kahnawake reserve near Montreal. According to official accounts, five workers died during the construction.[25] Governor Smith's grandchildren cut the ribbon on May 1, 1931. Lewis Wickes Hine's photography of the construction provides not only invaluable documentation of the construction, but also a glimpse into common day life of workers in that era.[26]
Opening
The building's opening coincided with the Great Depression in the United States, and as a result much of its office space was initially unrented. The building's vacancy was exacerbated by its poor location on 34th Street, which placed it relatively far from public transportation, as Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station were (and are) several blocks away, as is the more-recently built Port Authority Bus Terminal. Other more successful skyscrapers, such as the Chrysler Building, did not have this problem. In its first year of operation, the observation deck took in approximately 2 million dollars, as much money as its owners made in rent that year. The lack of renters led New Yorkers to deride the building as the "Empty State Building".[28][29] 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 upper Manhattan real-estate firm Charles F. Noyes & Company for a record $51 million. At the time, that was the highest price paid for a single structure in real-estate history.[30]Incidents
Suicides
Over the years, more than thirty people have committed suicide from the top of the building.[31] The first suicide occurred even before its completion, by a worker who had been laid off. The fence around the observatory terrace was put up in 1947 after five people tried to jump during a three-week span.[32]On May 1, 1947, 23-year-old Evelyn McHale leapt to her death from the 86th floor observation deck and landed on a United Nations limousine parked at the curb. Photography student Robert Wiles took a photo of McHale's oddly intact corpse a few minutes after her death. The police found a suicide note among possessions she left on the observation deck: "He is much better off without me ... I wouldn’t make a good wife for anybody". The photo ran in the May 12, 1947 edition of Life magazine[33] and is often referred to as "The Most Beautiful Suicide". It was later used by visual artist Andy Warhol in one of his prints entitled Suicide (Fallen Body).
However, some people have survived jumping off the building. On December 2, 1979, Elvita Adams jumped from the 86th floor, only to be blown back onto the 85th floor by a gust of wind and left with a broken hip.[34][35][36] On April 25, 2013, a man, who is presumed to have jumped, fell from the 86th floor observation deck but landed alive on an 85th floor ledge – where security guards managed to bring him inside; he suffered only minor injuries.[37]
Only one person has jumped from the upper observatory. On November 3, 1932, Frederick Eckert, of Astoria, ran past a guard in the enclosed 102nd floor gallery and jumped a gate leading to an outdoor catwalk intended for dirigible passengers. Eckert's body landed on the roof of the 86th floor observation promenade.[38]
1945 plane crash
Main article: B-25 Empire State Building crash
At 9:40 a.m.on Saturday, July 28, 1945, a B-25 Mitchell bomber, piloted in thick fog by Lieutenant Colonel William Franklin Smith, Jr.,[39] 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
flew as far as the next block where it landed on the roof of a nearby
building, starting a fire that destroyed a penthouse. The other engine
and part of the landing gear plummeted down an elevator shaft. The
resulting fire was extinguished in 40 minutes. 14 people were killed in
the accident.[40][41] 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.[42]
Despite the damage and loss of life, the building was open for business
on many floors on the following Monday. The crash helped spur the
passage of the long-pending Federal Tort Claims Act
of 1946, as well as the insertion of retroactive provisions into the
law, allowing people to sue the government for the accident.[43]A year later, another aircraft narrowly missed striking the building.[44]
Shootings
Two major shooting incidents have occurred at or in front of the Empire State Building.On February 24, 1997, a gunman shot seven people on the observation deck, killing one, then fatally wounded himself.[45]
On August 24, 2012 at about 9 a.m. EDT, on the sidewalk at the Fifth Avenue side of the building, a gunman shot and killed a former co-worker from a workplace that had laid him off in 2011. When two police officers confronted the gunman, 58-year-old Jeffrey T. Johnson, he aimed his firearm at them. They responded by firing 16 shots at Johnson, killing him but also wounding nine bystanders, most of whom were hit by fragments, although three took direct hits from stray bullets.[46]
Architecture
The Empire State Building was the first building to have more than 100 floors. It has 6,500 windows and 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 sq ft (257,211 m2); the base of the Empire State Building is about 2 acres (8,094 m2). The building houses 1,000 businesses and has its own zip code, 10118. As of 2007, approximately 21,000 employees work in the building each 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. Its original 64 elevators are located in a central core;[47] 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 80th floor, which contains a gift shop and an exhibit detailing the building's construction. From there, visitors can take another elevator or climb the stairs to the 86th floor, where an outdoor observation deck is located. The building has 70 mi (113 km) of pipe, 2,500,000 ft (760,000 m) of electrical wire,[48] and about 9,000 faucets.[citation needed] It is heated by low-pressure steam; despite its height, the building only requires between 2 and 3 psi (14 and 21 kPa) of steam pressure for heating. It weighs approximately 370,000 short tons (340,000 t). The exterior of the building was built using Indiana limestone panels.
The Empire State Building cost $40,948,900 to build (equal to roughly $500,000,000 in 2010).[4] 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 previous generations. This is particularly evident in the over-design of the building's electrical system.
Unlike most of today's skyscrapers, the Empire State Building features an art deco design, typical of pre–World War II architecture in New York. 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.[11]
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 contained eight illuminated panels, created by Roy Sparkia and Renée Nemorov in 1963 in time for the 1964 World's Fair, which depicts the building as the Eighth Wonder of the World, alongside the traditional seven. These panels were eventually moved near a ticketing line for the observation deck.
The building's lobbies and common areas received a $550 million renovation in 2009, which included new air conditioning, waterproofing, and renovating the observation deck; moving the gift shop to the 80th floor.[49] Up until the 1960s, the ceilings in the lobby had a shiny art deco mural inspired by both the sky and the Machine Age, until it was covered with ceiling tiles and fluorescent lighting. Because the original murals, designed by an artist named Leif Neandross, were damaged, reproductions were installed. Over 50 artists and workers used 15,000 square feet of aluminum and 1,300 square feet of 23-carat gold leaf to re-create the mural. Renovations to the lobby alluded to original plans for the building; replacing the clock over the information desk in the Fifth Avenue lobby with an Anemometer, as well as installing two chandeliers originally intended to be part of the building when it first opened.[50]
Lights
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 St. Patrick's Day, Christmas, Independence Day and Bastille Day.[51] 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.[52]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.[53] On June 4, 2002, the Empire State Building donned purple and gold (the royal colors of Elizabeth II), in thanks for the United Kingdom playing the Star Spangled Banner during the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace on September 12, 2001 (a show of support after the September 11 attacks).[54] This would also be shown after the Westminster Dog Show. 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 first weekend in June finds the building bathed in green light for the Belmont Stakes held in nearby Belmont Park. The building is illuminated in tennis-ball yellow during the US Open tennis tournament in late August and early September. It was twice lit in scarlet to support nearby Rutgers University: once for a football game against the University of Louisville on November 9, 2006, and again on April 3, 2007 when the women's basketball team played in the national championship game.[55] On June 1–3, 2012, the building was lit in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, in honor of the 49th annual Celebrate Israel Parade.[56]
During 2012, the building's metal halide lamps and floodlights were replaced with LED fixtures, increasing the available colors from nine to over 16 million. The computer-controlled system allows the building to be illuminated in ways that were unable to be done previously with plastic gels. For instance, on November 6, 2012, CNN used the top of the Empire State Building as a scoreboard for the 2012 United States presidential election. When incumbent president Barack Obama had reached the 270 electoral votes necessary to win re-election, the lights turned blue. Had Republican challenger Mitt Romney won, the building would have been lit red.[57] Also, on November 26, 2012, the building had its first ever synchronized light show, using music from recording artist Alicia Keys.[58][59] Those wishing to hear the music could tune to certain radio stations in the New York area. A video of the performance was posted online the next day.[60]
Dirigible (airship) terminal
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.[61] A particular 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.[62] 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,[63] as well as the lack of mooring lines tying the other end of the craft to the ground.[64] A large broadcast tower was added to the top of the spire in 1953.[61]Height records and comparisons
The longest world record held by the Empire State Building was for the tallest skyscraper (to structural height), which it held for 42 years until it was surpassed by the North Tower of the World Trade Center in 1972. An early-1970s proposal to dismantle the spire and replace it with an additional 11 floors, which would have brought the building's height to 1,494 feet (455 m) and made it once again the world's tallest at the time, was considered but ultimately rejected.[65]
With the destruction of the World Trade Center in the September 11 attacks, the Empire State Building again became the tallest building in New York City, and the second-tallest building in the Americas, surpassed only by the Willis Tower in Chicago. It is currently the fourth-tallest, surpassed by the Willis Tower, the Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago) and the One World Trade Center. One World Trade Center, currently under construction, surpassed the roof height of the Empire State Building on April 30, 2012, and became the tallest building in New York City—on the way toward becoming the tallest building in the Americas at a planned 1,776 feet (541 m).
When measured by pinnacle height, the Empire State Building is the third-tallest building in the USA, surpassed by the Willis Tower and Chicago's John Hancock Center. On clear days, the building can be seen from much of the New York Metropolitan Area, as far away as New Haven, Connecticut; Morristown, New Jersey; and from the roller coasters at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, New Jersey, specifically Kingda Ka.[citation needed]
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. It is completely enclosed and much smaller than the first one; it may be closed on high-traffic days. Tourists may pay to visit the observation deck on the 86th floor and an additional amount for the 102nd floor.[66] The lines to enter the observation decks, according to Concierge.com, are "as legendary as the building itself:" there are five of them: the sidewalk line, the lobby elevator line, the ticket purchase line, the second elevator line, and the line to get off the elevator and onto the observation deck.[67] For an extra fee tourists can skip to the front of the line.[66] The Empire State Building makes more money from tickets sales for its observation decks that it does from renting office space.[68]The skyscraper's observation deck plays host to several cinematic, television, and literary classics including, An Affair To Remember, On the Town, Love Affair and Sleepless in Seattle. In the Latin American literary work Empire of Dreams by Giannina Braschi the observation deck is the site of a pastoral revolution; shepherds take over the City of New York. The deck was also the site of a publicity-stunt Martian invasion in an episode of I Love Lucy ("Lucy Is Envious", season 3, episode 25).
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