Empire State Building

At the start of the twentieth century, the city of New York was characterized by a boom in the activity of construction. The buildings were constructed and then demolished only a few years later to create space for the bigger buildings. Businesses competed for the honour of having their name on the tallest building not only in the city, but in the world. The skyline of the metropolis became its pride, crowned with a series of skyscrapers, each different from the previous.

In the race to have your name on the tallest building the developers were even able to resort to deception. In 1930, they completed the skyscrapers of the Manhattan bank. It stood 135 foot higher than the old Woolworth building and 2 foot higher than the projected height of a rival project, the Chrysler building, which was already in construction. The architect of the Chrysler building, William Van Alen, however, had 185 foot of a secret spire mounted in the middle of the building. At the end of its construction on 23 October 1929, the tower took its place and in just 90 minutes the Chrysler building usurped the Bank of Manhattan with the title of the tallest building in the world.

The consultancy architects of the Bank of Manhattan, Shreve and Lamb, however, soon had their revenge. Despite the fact that the Chrysler building was being crowned, they were designing a structure that would change the skyline of Manhattan and converted it into an icon of the city. The building that was working on at the time was 1, 454 feet high, with 102 floors and received a name that commemorated the state of New York: The Empire State Building.

The man behind the construction of the Empire State Building was the industrial John J Raskob. The person most associated with the project, however, was a friend of Raskobs, Al Smith, the ex governor of the state of New York. Smith was a very loved politician and the firm 'Raskob and Smith' worked together to construct the tallest skyscrapers in the world, they took advantage of the notoriety of their previous position by naming the building according to the nickname of the state.

Raskob and associates bought a piece of land that contained the old Hotel Waldorf-Astoria on 350 fifth avenue. The hotel was demolished and the Architecture firm of Shreve and Lamb was contracted to design the new building. Like many buildings at that time, it was given an 'art deco' look that emphasised the thick lines, the symmetry and motives like the sun rays and stripes. In the beginning the building was designed with a flat top and it was only a little bit taller than the Chrysler building. Then, on 11 December 1929, it was announced that the designers had decided to add two hundred feet of mast height that they have designed for aeroplanes etc to land.

At that moment, aircraft's were considered the future wave of transport. The addition of a vessel on the 200 foot mast not only meant that the structure was significantly taller than the Chrysler building, the cylinder tower was not purely ornamental but functional. The mast berth on the building enabled passengers on aircraft's to disembark in the centre of the city instead of in some terminal of a remote airport many kilometres away. It was estimated that a passenger could be capable of getting off their aircraft on floor 102, take a lift down to the observation platform on floor 86, collect their luggage and then travel in another lift to the street level and be walking on Fifth Avenue just seven minutes after their arrival.

However, as attractive as this idea was, it was never practical. The winds around the skyscrapers tended to be unpredictable, making the docking difficult. Also, the mast berth of the Empire State Building only allowed the nose of the nave to be secured to the building, instead of the nose and tail, since it had been a typical disposition in the field of aviation. With only the nose secured, a sudden wind could easily incline the tail of the aircraft to an almost vertical position. Also, it was a question of having the passengers walk on an open walkway from the aircraft to the mast without anything below them for over a thousand feet. It was an exploit that could even make passengers who are not prone to acrophobia feel a little nervous.

The top of the building: Chrome-nickel steel mooring mast was constructed for aircraft's but is now the base of a big antenna. (Photography by Jiuguang Wang and Licensed under the Creative Commons license Attribution-Share under the same license 2. 0 Generic).

The idea to use the mast for land aircraft's was finally was cut but the same mast made an excellent architectonic addition to the building. Constructed from bright chrome-nickel steel that looked a bit like a rocket taking off, including four "fins" or wings of cast iron. In the night it it illuminated and can be seen for miles.

The construction of the building started on 17 March 1930, with the erection of two hundred and ten columns of steel, twelve of which were in all the height of the building. The building constructor, Starreett Bros. and Eken, created a very tight schedule. Some time before the building was inaugurated, the owners were quickly able to start earning money thanks to the collection of the rent from the tenants. The constructors utilised lots of innovative ideas to excel the construction, like a ramp that allowed bricks to be poured directly into the basement where they could be left in cars and raised to the ground floor where they worked when necessary. This kept the surrounding streets clear of mountains of bricks waiting to be used, as well as removing the broken bricks, moving them around the place in a wheelbarrow.

It took 7 million hours of manual labour to complete the 365, 000 tonne structure. The frame rose at a rate of 4 stories per week. During the course of the construction, 3, 400 workers of 60 different trades were involved. The workers used 57, 000 tonnes of steel in the frame and they installed 6, 500 windows. If someone decided to walk up it it they could go up the 1, 860 stairs that they put in position to climb up to floor 102.

The work was completed in only one year and forty five days for 40948. 90 dollars. It was finished on time and nearly ten thousand dollars less than they had hoped (principally due to the depressed labour costs caused by the Great Depression in the decade of 1930). The Empire State Building was officially inaugurated on 1 May 1931, by the President Herbert Hoover who remotely lit up the tower from Washington, DC.

When the building work was finished, the building was the tallest building in the world and the highest artificial structure of any type. It lost this title of the highest artificial structure in 1953, when the Griffin television tower in Oklahoma was completed. It continued being the tallest independent structure in the world until 1967, when it was beaten by the Ostankino tower.

The building, which dominated the skyline of the city, soon became known throughout the world as the icon of the City of New York. Its fame was not small due to the fact that it was used as the setting in the making of the King Kong film in 1933. In the film, a gigantic monkey is captured in a remote island in the Pacific. Brought to the city of New York as part of an exhibition, it escapes and carries the heroine of the film to the top of the Empire State Building before being defeated by the armed planes that surround it. On the 50th anniversary of the film, the connection between the giant ape and the building was reinforced even more when a 3, 000-pound Kong globe was attached to the mast. The public were reminded of the association again when the film was remade in 2005 by the director, Peter Jackson.

King Kong was only one of the many films that highlighted the building. The 1939 Romantic drama 'Love Affair' together with the 1937 drama 'An affair to remember' and the 1993 film 'Sleepless in Seattle' are about a lovelorn way of couples meeting (or failing to meet) on the observation platform of the building.

The structure underwent the most violent test on Saturday 28 July 1945 when B-25 Mitchell bombing, lost in the snow, hit the building between floors 78 and 80a. The plane of ten tonnes made a tear in the structure which was 18 feet wide and killed 14 people. One of the motors of the plane made a hole directly through the building, whilst the other motor and part of the landing gear fell down through the elevator shaft. The impact also caused a fire. The flames were extinguished in forty minutes, the only time that a fire of this height has ever been controlled with success. During the fire, rescue teams tried to evacuate an injured woman using a lift without knowing the cables had been damaged. The cables broke and the lift fell 75 floors. The woman, Betty Lou Oliver, still holds the world record for surviving the largest fall in a lift.

The Empire State Building is illuminated by artificial light during the night. The Chrysler tower is in the background. Photographer Michael Slonecker and licensed (under the Creative Commons license Attribution-Share under the same license 2. 0 Generic).

In 1953, a big broadcasting tower was added to the superior part of the mast increasing the height to a total of 1, 454 feet. The Empire State Building had the record as the tallest building of offices in the world (which is not considered the same as the tallest tower) for 42 years until it was topped by the North Skyscrapers of the World Trade Centre in 1973. It regained the title of the tallest building in the city of New York, however, with the tragic destruction of the World Trade Centre by a terrorist attack in 2001. It became the second tallest building in New York again when the new World Trade centre (preciously known as the Liberty Tower) was completed in 2012.

Even if the Empire State Building is no longer the tallest building in the world or even the tallest building in the city of New York, it continues being one of the most beautiful. Its spire Art-Deco, lit up by floor lights in the night, is a show that is recognized all over the world. In 1994, the American Society of Civil Engineers chose the structure as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World, commemorating the 20th century's greatest civil engineering achievements.