Empire State Building (New York City, New York)

1,250-foot, 102-story Art-Deco office building completed in 1931. Designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, it was the tallest building in the world from 1931 until 1974, when overtaken by One World Trade Center. New York's Chrysler previously held the record, but for only less than a year. The tip of the antenna rises to 1,454.

The building was developed by John Jacob Raskob and erected in only 15 months during the Great Depression. The project involved 3,400 workers, mostly immigrants from Europe, along with hundreds of Mohawk iron workers. According to official accounts, five workers died during the construction. The building is clad primarily in Indiana limestone, with a 5-story base. Above that the tower rises with shallow setbacks at the 21st, 25th, 30th and 72nd floors, to the 81st floor, where a somewhat more pronounced setback marks the top of the commercial office portion of the building and the beginning of the five-story executive suites. A final setback at the 85th floor marks the observatory, with the slender aluminum and nickel/steel-clad mast that support the television antenna rising above that. The antenna was added in 1953. The various setbacks on all sides produce a symmetrical massing that emphasizes the verticality of the building and creates the effect of a tower rising from a layer of surrounding tapered masses.

Much of its office space was initially unrented, due to the depression and its location on 34th Street, which placed it relatively far from public transportation. The lack of renters led New Yorkers to deride the building as the "Empty State Building". The building would not become profitable until 1950.

Today, The Empire State Building is a focal point of both New York travel and New York tourism. It opens its observatory doors 365 days a year, day and night and rain or shine, so that visitors may take in some of the most stunning cityscape views to be had anywhere. Visitors are whisked up 86 floors in a high-speed elevator, and can take part in an Empire State Building audio tour, or just create their own self-guided trip around the observatory.

The Empire State Building has been featured in popular culture and movies throughout the years, most notably in the original "King Kong", where the giant ape was shown clinging to the top and spire of the building. It also starred prominently in the movies "An Affair to Remember", "Sleepless in Seattle", "The Day After Tomorrow", "Independence Day" and was recreated digitally in the 2005 remake of "King Kong".

Fascinating Empire State Building facts and trivia abound. In 1945 at the end of World War II, an Army Air Corps B-25 twin-engine bomber crashed into the 79th floor of the building in dense fog. Among the more intriguing Empire State Building facts is that the original intent of the building was that it was to be used as a mooring mast and depot for zeppelins. That proved both impractical and dangerous due to the sizable updraft from the building itself.

The exterior is defined almost entirely by a system of vertical strips of windows, projecting slightly beyond the limestone walls, set in continuous vertical metal surrounds, and separated by dull aluminum spandrels; these strips are arranged singly, in pairs, and in sets of three, and run continuously from bottom to top. There is almost no ornamental detail, other than modernistic ripples in the aluminum spandrels and modernistic caps where the window strips terminate at building setbacks.

Although the Empire State Building is often described as 102 stories tall, that is not quite accurate. The major office portion of the building is comprised of 80 floors of commercial space, with five floors above that for the building's executive offices, and the observatory at the 86th floor. The enormous metal "mooring mast" above the building contains only an elevator encircled by a staircase, and no floors per se; its height, however, is considered by the Empire State Building management to be the equivalent of 14 floors; these, added to the 86 office floors and two basement levels, produce the figure of 102 floors.

The 5th Avenue facade centers on the building's main entrance which consists of a central pair of doors flanked on either side by a revolving door; a 3-story high, 3-bay wide set of windows set in modernistically-designed patterns, and an attic story of a pair of windows, all set off from the rest of the facade by two giant molded-stone piers topped by stylized stone eagles above which are inscribed the words "EMPIRE STATE". The rest of the facade is comprised of monumental bays, three on either side. Each bay consists of a storefront of chrome-metal and glass at the ground floor, two 3-story vertical window strips separated by a narrow stone mullion and flanked by a wide stone pier with a modernistic top in place of a capital, and two windows at the 5th floor level separate by a narrow squat molded-stone mullion and flanked by wide squat stone piers. These three bays are set off from the central entrance bay by a half-bay comprising one vertical strip of windows, and end at either corner with a half-bay set between two monumental stone piers.

The identical 33rd & 34th Street facades each comprise three sections of monumental bays, similar to those on Fifth Avenue, separated by two entrance bays. The three sections consist of six, seven, and six bays, slightly emphasizing the central section. The two entrance bays on either facade, which project slightly outward, are less elaborate versions of the main Fifth Avenue entrance bay. The two West 33rd Street entrances, however, are actually recessed; the doors are aluminum, set in marble walls.

Streamlined metal marquee-type canopies with curving corners project over the entrances on West 33rd and 34th Street; each is ringed by three sets of continuous horizontal metal bands. The storefronts have black granite bases, with cornices of horizontal molded-aluminum bands framing a black granite panel, and recessed entrances, and each is separated from the next by narrow molded aluminum mullions topped by modernistic finials. Heartland Brewery on the ground floor used to be a branch of the Longchamps chain, decorated in Mississippi riverboat style.

The tower on the east and west facades in nine bays wide from the 6th to the 25th floor, seven bays wide to the 72nd floor, six bays wide to the 81st floor, and five bays wide to the mooring mast. The north and south facade, wider than the east and west, are 15 bays wide from the 6th to the 21st floor, 11 bays wide to the 30th floor, and nine bays wide to the mooring mast; the nine bays from the 30th floor up are divided into three sections of three bays each: a central section enframed by two projecting side sections; the central section rises unbroken to the 85th floor, while the flanking projecting sections rise to a shallow setback at the 72nd floor and another at the 81st. The various setbacks produce a symmetrical massing that emphasizes the verticality of the building, and creates at the lower levels the effect of a tower rising from a layer of surrounding tapered masses.

A window pattern of long vertical strips is used to break up the mass of the building. Each window in the vertical strips protrudes slightly from the limestone cladding, and is enframed by a strip of nickel-chrome steel; each window is separated from the one above by a dull aluminum spandrel with modernistic molding. Where the vertical strips rise to a setback, they end in simple modernistic metal caps, and begin again above the setback. The three central window strips on the north and south sides end at the 85th-floor level in much larger and more elaborate metal plates. The alternation between paired, triple, and single strips is used to create a horizontal rhythm of vertical lines accentuating the center of each facade.

Rising above the 86-story office building is the aluminum, chrome-nickel-steel and glass mast, now serving only as a support for the upper observatory tower, and housing for display lights. Four progressively smaller rectangular levels form a base from which springs a cylindrical shaft rising to a conical top. The sides of the levels forming the base are ringed by continuous horizontal metal banding. At each of the four corners of the shaft, rising to half its height, is a set of three overlapping metal wings from which the shaft appears to grow; the four sides are formed by continuous glass walls. The top is in three sections: a cylindrical enclosed observation level, of the same circumference as the shaft; a second, smaller cylindrucal level surrounds by a open-air observation area (no longer in use and originally intended as the landing platform for dirigible passengers); and a top section in the shape of a truncated-cone, pierced by eight circular openings which houses the beacon lights, and which is topped by a metal pole; each of these three sections is ringed by tubular metal bands. The mooring mast is now the base for a 200-foot high television antenna, added in 1953, which completes the silhouette of the building as it has been known since that year.

There is a loading dock on the west side of the lot which is connected internally to the Empire State building. It has a 2-story faux facade (made of a large cloth sheet) that imitates the design of the building.

Until the completion of the new One World Trade Center (1776 feet tall) in 2013, the Empire State Building remained the tallest building in New York following 9/11.

The ground floor is occupied by Tacombi restaurant, State Grill & Bar, Chop't restaurant, Sushi-teria restaurant, a Starbucks coffee, FedEx Office Ship Center, Juice Press, Walgreens pharmacy, Chipotle Mexican Grill, and the Observatory lobby.

www.esbnyc.com/


www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRLgzJWdfd4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD5qhPqEBFU

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 office buildingskyscraperpanoramic viewantennaArt Deco (architecture)historical building1931_constructionU.S. National Historic Landmark