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A vintage 6 1/8 x 8 inch photo from 1945 depicting a SURVIVOR OF EMPIRE STATE BUILDING BLAST. NEW YORK CITY – CRYING HYSTERICALLY HER FACE AND CLOTHING BLACKENED BY SMOKE, A WOMAN OFFICE WORKER IS HELPED DOWN AN EMERGENCY STAIRWAY IN THE STRICKEN EMPIRE STATE BUILDING. THE WORLD’S TALLEST STRUCTURE WAS ROCKED BY A TERRIFIC EXPLOSION WHEN A B-25 BOMBER CRASHED INTO THE 78TH FLOOR AND BLEW UP STARTING A FOUR ALARM FIRE. THE NUMBER OF DEAD AND INJURED HAD NOT YET BEEN DETERMINED. Empire State Building Withstood Airplane ImpactOTHER ARTICLES IN THE WTC SERIESWhy Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Science, Engineering, and Speculation by Thomas Eagar and Christopher Musso Better Materials Can Reduce the Threat from Terrorism by Toni G. Maréchaux An Initial Microstructural Analysis of A36 Steel from WTC Building 7 by J.R. Barnett, R.R. Biederman, and R.D. Sisson, Jr. News & Update The World Trade Center towers were not the first of New York’s skyscrapers to be hit by an airplane. In 1945, the Empire State Building withstood the impact of a U.S. Army Air Corps B-25 bomber. Fourteen lives were lost, but the steel structure remained standing after the unarmed trainer plane slammed into the building’s 79th floor. The accident was ruled by authorities to be caused by pilot error, after Lieutenant Colonel William F. Smith Jr., a decorated veteran of World War II and experienced pilot, apparently lost his way in the dense fog that had enveloped Manhattan that Saturday morning in July. Smith was flying the twin-engine bomber from his home in Bedford, Massachusetts to Newark, New Jersey, where he had planned to pick up his commanding officer before continuing on to home base in South Dakota. Smith had been scheduled to land at La Guardia Airport, and the air traffic controller directed him to do so. Smith, however, asked for and received permission to land in Newark instead. The last words the air traffic controller spoke to Smith were ‘At the present time, I can’t see the top of the Empire State Building,’ according to the Empire State Building’s web site. At 9:40 a.m., as workers went about their business in the Catholic War Relief Office on the 79th floor, the B-25 crashed into that office at 322 kilometers per hour. The impact reportedly tore off the bomber’s wings, leaving a five meter by six meter hole in the building. One engine was catapulted through the Empire State Building, emerging on the opposite side and crashing through the roof of a neighboring building. The second engine and part of the bomber’s landing gear fell through an elevator shaft. When the plane hit, its fuel tanks were reported to have exploded, engulfing the 79th floor in flames. The 102-story building shook with the initial impact, according to witnesses, but within three months, the damage was repaired at a cost of about $1 million. Smith died in the crash, along with two other crew members. Eleven workers died in the Catholic War Relief Office, and at least two dozen people were injured. The last thing the air traffic controller at La Guardia Airport told the pilot that foggy Saturday morning 50 years ago today sounded almost like an afterthought: “At the present time, I can’t see the top of the Empire State Building.” “Roger, tower, thank you,” the pilot, Lieut. Col. William F. Smith Jr., muttered into his push-to-talk cockpit microphone, heading west toward Newark. A minute or two later, disoriented and dodging the skyscrapers of Manhattan, the B-25 saw the top of the Empire State Building — through the windshield. Roaring along at 200 miles an hour, the plane slammed into the 78th and 79th floors, gouging an 18-by-20-foot hole 913 feet above 34th Street. Fourteen people died in the crash and the fire that followed: Colonel Smith and the 2 others in the plane, and 11 in what was then the world’s tallest building. The horror was almost unimaginable. The fuel tanks exploded. An engine and part of the landing gear plummeted through an elevator shaft into the subbasement. The other engine plowed through the building, emerging on the 33d Street side and crashing through the roof of a sculptor’s studio. Windows shattered even on the tall building’s lowest floors, hurling chunks of glass toward the street. Sign up for the New York Today NewsletterEach morning, get the latest on New York businesses, arts, sports, dining, style and more. SIGN UPTo New Yorkers who had watched their steel-frame skyline climb higher and higher in the 1920’s and 1930’s — and who had worried about enemy airplanes as World War II dragged on — it was one of those where-were-you-when moments, like the assassination of John F. Kennedy a generation later. “It was as if a bomb went off,” said the harpsichordist Albert Fuller, who was shopping in the B. Altman department store, diagonally across from the Empire State Building. “The floor moved. I looked at the clerk and said, ‘Isn’t that strange?’ And I thought, it couldn’t be an earthquake.” You have 4 free articles remaining.Subscribe to The TimesWhat it was took a moment to register, even though the engines had been droning louder and louder as the B-25 closed in on the Empire State Building. Colonel Smith and his commanding officer had flown the plane, an unarmed trainer whose guns had been removed, from its base in South Dakota earlier in the week. After dropping off the other officer in Newark, Colonel Smith had flown on to Bedford, Mass., where he visited his wife. Now, he was on the way to pick up the officer and return to South Dakota. “I don’t think any one of us had any idea of what had happened,” said Therese Fortier Willig, a secretary in the Catholic War Relief office on the 79th floor. “Who’d have thought a plane? We were used to having clouds come in the windows up there. The building wasn’t air-conditioned, and the first time I went in there, I was all agog because here were these little wisps of clouds drifting in the window.” But suddenly, fuel-fed flames were racing across the 79th floor, secretaries were dropping their stenographic pads and executives were stopping in midsentence. Editors’ Picks How to Boil the Perfect Egg She Quit Her Job. He Got Night Goggles. They Searched 57 Days for Their Dog. Tekashi 69: Can He Disappear After Testifying Against the Bloods?”I was taking dictation from my boss, a letter, something about exports,” said Althea S. Lethbridge, who was a 24-year-old bookkeeper and secretary at a trading company seven floors below. “Everything shook. We ran to the window and looked down. We saw flames below us. Then we looked up and saw flames above us. That was the scary part. We didn’t know how fireproof the building was.” Running into the corridor, she saw flaming debris plummeting in the elevator shafts. She walked down 70 dark flights of stairs, holding onto the coattail of a man in front of her. She never learned his name. Mrs. Willig said she and those in her office who were not killed instantly crowded into a room with a door they could close to seal out the smoke. “I thought we were going to die,” she said. In despair, she pulled her rings off her fingers — her high-school graduation ring and a friendship ring from her boyfriend — and lobbed them out the window, never expecting to see them again. But a few days later, the Fire Department found them amid the debris on 34th Street, and returned them. (A couple of years later, she married the man who had given her the friendship ring, and had a son who also had an affinity for high places — George Willig, who climbed the World Trade Center in the 1970’s.) “Time is a wonderful — I don’t know whether you can call it a healer, but it makes you forget,” Mrs. Willig said. “I’ve seen people coming out of fires, tragedies like that, I have to think back and go, ‘I was in something like that.’ ” The plane struck about 9:50 A.M. Colonel Smith, whose departure from Massachusetts had been delayed by the bad weather, had filed a flight plan to La Guardia Airport. But instead of requesting landing clearance when he came within range, Colonel Smith asked for the weather at Newark, saying he preferred to land there. An investigation by the War Department, now part of the Defense Department, found that the pilot “erred in judgment when he elected to fly over Manhattan in weather conditions which prevailed at the time” and that he should not have been cleared to proceed to Newark. “He was Russian-rouletting it,” said Arthur Weingarten, a writer and television producer who was in Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia’s office when word of the catastrophe reached City Hall and who wrote a book about the crash, “The Sky Is Falling” (Grosset & Dunlap, 1977). “He thought he was on final approach heading into Newark and he was just crossing the East River right over the 59th Street Bridge. Had he kicked left rudder when he passed the Chrysler Building, he’d have been home free. But he started to go right rudder, and that put him in the path of the Empire State Building.” And into the path of what is now Michael J. Berman’s office in a communications and marketing company on the 79th floor. “We figured it out based on the picture, counting the windows, down and up,” he said. But he could also have checked with his partner, Albert Pearl, who was 12 that Saturday morning and was helping out in his father’s fur factory on West 29th Street. “We heard the plane and then we heard the sound,” Mr. Pearl said, who was pulling nails from a board used to stretch skins. “As I remember it, I think I saw the tail sticking out of the building. We had no idea what it was, and the guys in the factory were very blase. We just kept on working.” The Empire State Building B-25 crash was a 1945 aircraft accident in which a B-25 Mitchell bomber, piloted in thick fog over New York City, crashed into the Empire State Building. The accident did not compromise the building’s structural integrity, but it did cause fourteen deaths (three crewmen and eleven people in the building) and damage estimated at US$1 million (equivalent to about $14M in 2018).[1] Contents1Details2See also3References4External linksDetails The plane embedded in the side of the building, 1945On Saturday, July 28, 1945, Lieut. Col. William F. Smith Jr. was piloting a B-25 Mitchell bomber on a routine personnel transport mission from Bedford Army Air Field in Massachusetts to Newark Airport in New Jersey.[2][3][4] Smith asked for clearance to land, but he was advised of zero visibility.[5] Proceeding anyway, he became disoriented by the fog and started turning right instead of left after passing the Chrysler Building.[6] At 9:40 a.m., the aircraft crashed into the north side of the Empire State Building, between the 78th and 80th floors, carving an 18-by-20-foot (5.5 m × 6.1 m) hole in the building[7] where the offices of the National Catholic Welfare Council were located. One engine shot through the South side opposite the impact and flew as far as the next block, dropping 900 feet (270 m) and landing on the roof of a nearby building and starting a fire that destroyed a penthouse art studio. The other engine and part of the landing gear plummeted down an elevator shaft. The resulting fire was extinguished in 40 minutes. It is still the only significant fire at such a height to be brought under control.[7] Fourteen people were killed: Smith, two enlisted men aboard the bomber (Staff Sergeant Christopher Domitrovich and Albert Perna, a Navy Aviation Machinist’s Mate, hitching a ride), and eleven people in the building.[1] The remains of Navy hitchhiker Albert Perna were not found until two days later, when search crews discovered that his body had gone through an elevator shaft and fallen to the bottom. The other two crewmen were burned beyond recognition.[8] Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver was injured when the cables supporting her elevator sheared and the elevator fell 75 stories, ending up in the basement. Oliver survived the fall, and rescuers found her amongst the rubble. This still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall.[6] Between 50 and 60 sightseers were on the 86th floor observation deck when the crash happened. Three crew members were killed upon impact.[9] The victims were named as Paul Dearing, Lt. Co. William F. Smith, St. Sgt. Christopher S. Demitrovich, AMM2/c Albert Perna, Jean Sozzi, Margaret Mullen, Mary Kedzierska, Betty Lou Oliver, Anna Gerlach, and Joseph “Joe” C. Fountain.[10] The others missing and suspected dead were Lucille Bath, Anne Gerlach, Patricia O’Connor, Maureen McGuire, Mary Taylor, and John A. Judge.[11] Despite the damage and loss of life, the building was open for business on many floors on the following Monday. The crash spurred 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.[12] The Empire State Building is a 102-story[c] Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from “Empire State”, the nickname of the state of New York. The building has a roof height of 1,250 feet (380 m) and stands a total of 1,454 feet (443.2 m) tall, including its antenna. The Empire State Building stood as the world’s tallest building until the construction of the World Trade Center in 1970; following the latter’s collapse in 2001, the Empire State Building reverted to being the city’s tallest skyscraper until that title was surpassed in 2012. As of 2022, the building is the seventh-tallest building in New York City, the ninth-tallest completed skyscraper in the United States, the 54th-tallest in the world, and the sixth-tallest freestanding structure in the Americas. The site of the Empire State Building, in Midtown South on the west side of Fifth Avenue between West 33rd and 34th Streets, was developed in 1893 as the Waldorf–Astoria Hotel. In 1929, Empire State Inc. acquired the site and devised plans for a skyscraper there. The design for the Empire State Building was changed fifteen times until it was ensured to be the world’s tallest building. Construction started on March 17, 1930, and the building opened thirteen and a half months afterward on May 1, 1931. Despite favorable publicity related to the building’s construction, because of the Great Depression and World War II, its owners did not make a profit until the early 1950s. The building’s Art Deco architecture, height, and observation decks have made it a popular attraction. Around four million tourists from around the world annually visit the building’s 86th- and 102nd-floor observatories; an additional indoor observatory on the 80th floor opened in 2019. The Empire State Building is an international cultural icon: it has been featured in more than 250 television series and films since the film King Kong was released in 1933. The building’s size has become the global standard of reference to describe the height and length of other structures. A symbol of New York City, the building has been named as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. It was ranked first on the American Institute of Architects’ List of America’s Favorite Architecture in 2007. Additionally, the Empire State Building and its ground-floor interior were designated city landmarks by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1980, and were added to the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark in 1986. Contents1Site2Architecture2.1Form2.2Facade2.3Lights2.4Interior2.5Spire3History3.1Planning3.2Construction3.3Opening and early years3.4Profitability3.5Loss of “tallest building” title3.61980s and 1990s3.721st century4Height records5Notable tenants6Incidents6.11945 plane crash6.22000 elevator plunge6.3Suicide attempts6.4Shootings7Impact7.1As icon7.2In media7.3Empire State Building Run-Up8See also9References9.1Notes9.2Citations9.3Sources10Further reading11External linksSiteThe Empire State Building is located on the west side of Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, between 33rd Street to the south and 34th Street to the north.[16] Tenants enter the building through the Art Deco lobby located at 350 Fifth Avenue. Visitors to the observatories use an entrance at 20 West 34th Street; prior to August 2018, visitors entered through the Fifth Avenue lobby.[1] Although physically located in South Midtown,[17] a mixed residential and commercial area,[18] the building is so large that it was assigned its own ZIP Code, 10118;[19][20] as of 2012, it is one of 43 buildings in New York City that have their own ZIP codes.[21][b] The areas surrounding the Empire State Building are home to other major points of interest, including Macy’s at Herald Square on Sixth Avenue and 34th Street,[24] and Koreatown on 32nd Street between Madison and Sixth Avenues.[24][25] To the east of the Empire State Building is Murray Hill,[26] a neighborhood with a mix of residential, commercial, and entertainment activity.[27] The block directly to the northeast contains the B. Altman and Company Building, which houses the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, while the Demarest Building is directly across Fifth Avenue to the east.[28] The nearest New York City Subway stations are 34th Street–Herald Square, one block west, and 33rd Street at Park Avenue, two blocks east.[d] There is also a PATH station at 33rd Street and Sixth Avenue.[26] ArchitectureThe Empire State Building was designed by Shreve, Lamb and Harmon in the Art Deco style.[29] The Empire State Building is 1,250 ft (381 m) tall to its 102nd floor, or 1,453 feet 8+9⁄16 inches (443.092 m) including its 203-foot (61.9 m) pinnacle.[30] It was the first building in the world to be more than 100 stories tall,[31] though only the lowest 86 stories are usable. The first through 85th floors contain 2.158 million square feet (200,500 m2) of commercial and office space, while the 86th story contains an observatory.[32][30][33] The remaining 16 stories are part of the spire, which is capped by an observatory on the 102nd floor; the spire does not contain any intermediate levels and is used mostly for mechanical purposes.[30] Atop the 102nd story is the 203 ft (61.9 m) pinnacle, much of which is covered by broadcast antennas, and surmounted with a lightning rod.[34] The building has been named one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.[35] 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.[29] It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1986.[12][36][37] In 2007, it was first on the AIA’s List of America’s Favorite Architecture.[38] Form The five-story base as seen from Fifth Avenue, with the main entrance at center. The Empire State Building sets back significantly above the base.The Empire State Building has a symmetrical massing because of its large lot and relatively short base. Its articulation consists of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column, namely a base, shaft, and capital.[32] The five-story base occupies the entire lot, while the 81-story shaft above it is set back sharply from the base.[39][40][41] The setback above the 5th story is 60 feet (18 m) deep on all sides.[32] There are smaller setbacks on the upper stories, allowing sunlight to illuminate the interiors of the top floors while also positioning these floors away from the noisy streets below.[42][43] The setbacks are located at the 21st, 25th, 30th, 72nd, 81st, and 85th stories.[44] The setbacks correspond to the tops of elevator shafts, allowing interior spaces to be at most 28 feet (8.5 m) deep (see § Interior).[32] The setbacks were mandated by the 1916 Zoning Resolution, which was intended to allow sunlight to reach the streets as well.[e] Normally, a building of the Empire State’s dimensions would be permitted to build up to 12 stories on the Fifth Avenue side, and up to 17 stories on the 33rd/34th Streets side, before it would have to utilize setbacks.[40] However, with the largest setback being located above the base, the tower stories could contain a uniform shape.[51][52][45] According to architectural writer Robert A. M. Stern, the building’s form contrasted with the nearly contemporary, similarly designed 500 Fifth Avenue eight blocks north, which had an asymmetrical massing on a smaller lot.[39] FacadeThe Empire State Building’s Art Deco design is typical of pre–World War II architecture in New York City.[29] The facade is clad in Indiana limestone panels sourced from the Empire Mill in Sanders, Indiana,[53] which give the building its signature blonde color.[54] According to official fact sheets, the facade uses 200,000 cubic feet (5,700 m3) of limestone and granite, ten million bricks, and 730 short tons (650 long tons) of aluminum and stainless steel.[55] The building also contains 6,514 windows.[56] The decorative features on the facade are largely geometric, in contrast with earlier buildings, whose decorations often were intended to represent a specific narrative.[57] A pair of sculpted concrete eagles above the Fifth Avenue entranceThe main entrance, composed of three sets of metal doors, is at the center of the facade’s Fifth Avenue elevation, flanked by molded piers that are topped with eagles. Above the main entrance is a transom, a triple-height transom window with geometric patterns, and the golden letters “Empire State” above the fifth-floor windows.[58][41][59] There are two entrances each on 33rd and 34th Streets, with modernistic, stainless steel canopies projecting from the entrances on 33rd and 34th Streets there. Above the secondary entrances are triple windows, less elaborate in design than those on Fifth Avenue.[29][41][59] The storefronts on the first floor contain aluminum-framed doors and windows within a black granite cladding.[41][59] The second through fourth stories consist of windows alternating with wide stone piers and narrower stone mullions. The fifth story contains windows alternating with wide and narrow mullions, and is topped by a horizontal stone sill.[41] The facade of the tower stories is split into several vertical bays on each side, with windows projecting slightly from the limestone cladding. The bays are arranged into sets of one, two, or three windows on each floor.[58][60] The bays are separated by alternating narrow and wide piers, the inclusion of which may have been influenced by the design of the contemporary Daily News Building.[61] The windows in each bay are separated by vertical nickel-chrome steel mullions and connected by horizontal aluminum spandrels between each floor.[44][59] The windows are placed within stainless-steel frames, which eliminated the need to saved money by removing the need to apply a stone finish around the windows. In addition, the use of aluminum spandrels obviated the need for cross-bonding, which would have been required if stone had been used instead.[58] LightsThe Empire State Building illuminated in red, white, and blue before the 2012 United States presidential electionLights representing the Democratic and Republican parties just prior to the 2012 electionThe building was originally equipped with white searchlights at the top. They were first used in November 1932 when they lit up to signal Roosevelt’s victory over Hoover in the presidential election of that year.[62] These were later swapped for four “Freedom Lights” in 1956.[62] In February 1964, flood lights were added on the 72nd floor[63] to illuminate the top of the building at night so that the building could be seen from the World Fair later that year.[64] The lights were shut off from November 1973 to July 1974 because of the energy crisis at the time.[65] In 1976, the businessman Douglas Leigh suggested that Wien and Helmsley install 204 metal-halide lights, which were four times as bright as the 1,000 incandescent lights they were to replace.[66] New red, white, and blue metal-halide lights were installed in time for the country’s bicentennial that July.[65][67] After the bicentennial, Helmsley retained the new lights due to the reduced maintenance cost, about $116 a year.[66] Since October 12, 1977, the spire has been lit in colors chosen to match seasonal events and holidays.[58] Organizations are allowed to make requests through the building’s website.[68] The building is also lit in the colors of New York-based sports teams on nights when they host games: for example, orange, blue, and white for the New York Knicks; red, white, and blue for the New York Rangers.[69] The spire can also be lit to commemorate events including disasters, anniversaries, or deaths, as well as for celebrations such as Pride and Halloween. In 1998, the building was lit in blue after the death of singer Frank Sinatra, who was nicknamed “Ol’ Blue Eyes”.[70] The Empire State Building illuminated by rainbow-colored lighting at nightThe Empire State Building is bathed annually in rainbow-colored lighting during the Pride Month of June, evoking the international LGBT icon, as seen in this 2015 image.The structure was lit in red, white, and blue for several months after the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.[71] On January 13, 2012, the building was lit in red, orange, and yellow to honor the 60th anniversary of NBC program The Today Show.[72] After retired basketball player Kobe Bryant’s January 2020 death, the building was lit in purple and gold, signifying the colors of his former team, the Los Angeles Lakers.[73] In 2012, the building’s four hundred metal halide lamps and floodlights were replaced with 1,200 LED fixtures, increasing the available colors from nine to over 16 million.[74] The computer-controlled system allows the building to be illuminated in ways that were unable to be done previously with plastic gels.[75] For instance, CNN used the top of the Empire State Building as a scoreboard during the 2012 United States presidential election, using red and blue lights to represent Republican and Democratic electoral votes respectively.[76] Also, on November 26, 2012, the building had its first synchronized light show, using music from recording artist Alicia Keys.[77] Artists such as Eminem and OneRepublic have been featured in later shows, including the building’s annual Holiday Music-to-Lights Show.[78] The building’s owners adhere to strict standards in using the lights; for instance, they do not use the lights to play advertisements.[75] Interior One of several elevator lobbiesAccording to official fact sheets, the Empire State Building weighs 365,000 short tons (331,122 t) and has an internal volume of 37 million cubic feet (1,000,000 m3).[55] The interior required 1,172 miles (1,886 km) of elevator cable and 2 million feet (609,600 m) of electrical wires.[79] It has a total floor area of 2,768,591 sq ft (257,211 m2), and each of the floors in the base cover 2 acres (1 ha).[80] This gives the building capacity for 20,000 tenants and 15,000 visitors.[51] The riveted steel frame of the building was originally designed to handle all of the building’s gravitational stresses and wind loads.[81] The amount of material used in the building’s construction resulted in a very stiff structure when compared to other skyscrapers, with a structural stiffness of 42 pounds per square foot (2.0 kPa) versus the Willis Tower’s 33 pounds per square foot (1.6 kPa) and the John Hancock Center’s 26 pounds per square foot (1.2 kPa).[82] A December 1930 feature in Popular Mechanics estimated that a building with the Empire State’s dimensions would still stand even if hit with an impact of 50 short tons (45 long tons).[51] Utilities are grouped in a central shaft.[40] On the 6th through 86th stories, the central shaft is surrounded by a main corridor on all four sides.[45] Per the final specifications of the building, the corridor is surrounded in turn by office space 28 feet (8.5 m) deep, maximizing office space at a time before air conditioning became commonplace.[83][84][32] Each of the floors has 210 structural columns that pass through it, which provide structural stability but limits the amount of open space on these floors.[45] The relative dearth of stone in the Empire State Building allows for more space overall, with a 1:200 stone-to-building ratio compared to a 1:50 ratio in similar buildings.[85] Lobby Fifth Avenue lobbyThe original main lobby is accessed from Fifth Avenue, on the building’s east side, and is the only place in the building where the design contains narrative motifs.[57] It contains an entrance with one set of double doors between a pair of revolving doors. At the top of each doorway is a bronze motif depicting one of three “crafts or industries” used in the building’s construction—Electricity, Masonry, and Heating.[86] The three-story-high space, which runs parallel to 33rd and 34th Streets, contains storefronts to the north and south. These storefronts are flanked by tubes of dark rounded marble and topped by a vertical band of grooves set into the marble.[87] The lobby contains two tiers of marble: a lighter marble on the top, above the storefronts, and a darker marble on the bottom, flush with the storefronts. There is a pattern of zigzagging terrazzo tiles on the lobby floor, which leads from east to west.[87] The western ends of the north and south walls include escalators to a mezzanine level.[87][f] At the west end of the lobby, behind the security desk, is an aluminum relief of the skyscraper as it was originally built (without the antenna).[88] The relief, which was intended to provide a welcoming effect,[11] contains an embossed outline of the building, with rays radiating from the spire and the sun behind it.[89] In the background is a state map of New York with the building’s location marked by a “medallion” in the very southeast portion of the outline. A compass is depicted in the bottom right and a plaque to the building’s major developers is on the bottom left.[90][89] A scale model of the building was also placed south of the security desk.[90] Aluminum relief of the buildingThe plaque at the western end of the lobby is on the eastern interior wall of a one-story tall rectangular-shaped corridor that surrounds the banks of escalators, with a similar design to the lobby.[91] The rectangular-shaped corridor actually consists of two long hallways on the northern and southern sides of the rectangle,[92] as well as a shorter hallway on the eastern side and another long hallway on the western side.[91] At both ends of the northern and southern corridors, there is a bank of four low-rise elevators in between the corridors.[90][57][93] The western side of the rectangular elevator-bank corridor extends north to the 34th Street entrance and south to the 33rd Street entrance. It borders three large storefronts and leads to escalators (originally stairs), which go both to the second floor and to the basement. Going from west to east, there are secondary entrances to 34th and 33rd Streets from the northern and southern corridors, respectively.[87][f] The side entrances from 33rd and 34th Street lead to two-story-high corridors around the elevator core, crossed by stainless steel and glass-enclosed bridges at the mezzanine floor.[29][41][90] Until the 1960s, an Art Deco mural, inspired by both the sky and the Machine Age, was installed in the lobby ceilings.[88] Subsequent damage to these murals, designed by artist Leif Neandross, resulted in reproductions being installed. Renovations to the lobby in 2009, such as replacing the clock over the information desk in the Fifth Avenue lobby with an anemometer and installing two chandeliers intended to be part of the building when it originally opened, revived much of its original grandeur.[94] The north corridor contained eight illuminated panels created in 1963 by Roy Sparkia and Renée Nemorov, in time for the 1964 World’s Fair, depicting the building as the Eighth Wonder of the World alongside the traditional seven.[93][95] The building’s owners installed a series of paintings by the New York artist Kysa Johnson in the concourse level. Johnson later filed a federal lawsuit, in January 2014, under the Visual Artists Rights Act alleging the negligent destruction of the paintings and damage to her reputation as an artist.[96] As part of the building’s 2010 renovation, Denise Amses commissioned a work consisting of 15,000 stars and 5,000 circles, superimposed on a 13-by-5-foot (4.0 by 1.5 m) etched-glass installation, in the lobby.[97] ElevatorsThe Empire State Building has 73 elevators in all, including service elevators.[98] Its original 64 elevators, built by the Otis Elevator Company,[80] in a central core and are of varying heights, with the longest of these elevators reaching from the lobby to the 80th floor.[40][99] As originally built, there were four “express” elevators that connected the lobby, 80th floor, and several landings in between; the other 60 “local” elevators connected the landings with the floors above these intermediate landings.[52] Of the 64 total elevators, 58 were for passenger use (comprising the four express elevators and 54 local elevators), and eight were for freight deliveries.[45] The elevators were designed to move at 1,200 feet per minute (366 m/min). At the time of the skyscraper’s construction, their practical speed was limited to 700 feet per minute (213 m/min) per city law, but this limit was removed shortly after the building opened.[80][45] Additional elevators connect the 80th floor to the six floors above it, as the six extra floors were built after the original 80 stories were approved.[30][100] The elevators were mechanically operated until 2011, when they were replaced with automatic elevators during the $550 million renovation of the building.[101] An additional elevator connects the 86th and 102nd floor observatories, which allows visitors access the 102nd floor observatory after having their tickets scanned. It also allows employees to access the mechanical floors located between the 87th and 101st floors.[81] Observation decks 80th floor observation deckThe 80th, 86th, and 102nd floors contain observatories.[102][88][103] The latter two observatories saw a combined average of four million visitors per year in 2010.[104][105][106] Since opening, the observatories have been more popular than similar observatories at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the Chrysler Building, the first One World Trade Center, or the Woolworth Building, despite being more expensive.[105] There are variable charges to enter the observatories; one ticket allows visitors to go as high as the 86th floor, and there is an additional charge to visit the 102nd floor. Other ticket options for visitors include scheduled access to view the sunrise from the observatory, a “premium” guided tour with VIP access, and the “AM/PM” package which allows for two visits in the same day.[107] Interior and exterior observation decks at the 86th floorThe 86th floor observatory contains both an enclosed viewing gallery and an open-air outdoor viewing area, allowing for it to remain open 365 days a year regardless of the weather. The 102nd floor observatory is completely enclosed and much smaller in size. The 102nd floor observatory was closed to the public from the late 1990s to 2005 due to limited viewing capacity and long lines.[108][109] The observation decks were redesigned in mid-1979.[110] The 102nd floor was again redesigned in a project that was completed in 2019, allowing the windows to be extended from floor to ceiling and widening the space in the observatory overall.[111][112] An observatory on the 80th floor, opened in 2019, includes various exhibits as well as a mural of the skyline drawn by British artist Stephen Wiltshire.[113][103] According to a 2010 report by Concierge.com, the five lines to enter the observation decks are “as legendary as the building itself”. Concierge.com stated that there were five lines: 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.[114] However, in 2016, New York City’s official tourism website, NYCgo.com, made note of only three lines: the security check line, the ticket purchase line, and the second elevator line.[115] Following renovations completed in 2019, designed to streamline queuing and reduce wait times, guests enter from a single entrance on 34th Street, where they make their way through 10,000-square-foot (930 m2) exhibits on their way up to the observatories. Guests were offered a variety of ticket packages, including a package that enables them to skip the lines throughout the duration of their stay.[112] The Empire State Building garners significant revenue from ticket sales for its observation decks, making more money from ticket sales than it does from renting office space during some years.[105][116] A 360° panoramic view of New York City from the 86th-floor observation deck in spring 2005. East River is to the left, Hudson River to the right, south is near center.New York SkyrideIn early 1994, a motion simulator attraction was built on the 2nd floor,[117] as a complement to the observation deck.[118] The original cinematic presentation lasted approximately 25 minutes, while the simulation was about eight minutes.[119] The ride had two incarnations. The original version, which ran from 1994 until around 2002, featured James Doohan, Star Trek’s Scotty, as the airplane’s pilot who humorously tried to keep the flight under control during a storm.[120][121] After the September 11 attacks in 2001, the ride was closed.[118] An updated version debuted in mid-2002, featuring actor Kevin Bacon as the pilot, with the new flight also going haywire.[122] This new version served a more informative goal, as opposed to the old version’s main purpose of entertainment, and contained details about the 9/11 attacks.[123] The simulator received mixed reviews, with assessments of the ride ranging from “great” to “satisfactory” to “corny”.[124] SpireAbove the 102nd floorThe final stage of the building was the installation of a hollow mast, a 158-foot (48 m) steel shaft fitted with elevators and utilities, above the 86th floor. At the top would be a conical roof and the 102nd-floor docking station.[125][126] Inside, the elevators would ascend 167 feet (51 m) from the 86th floor ticket offices to a 33-foot-wide (10 m) 101st-floor[g] waiting room.[127][128] From there, stairs would lead to the 102nd floor,[g] where passengers would enter the airships.[125] The airships would have been moored to the spire at the equivalent of the building’s 106th floor.[128][129] As constructed, the mast contains four rectangular tiers topped by a cylindrical shaft with a conical pinnacle.[126] On the 102nd floor (formerly the 101st floor), there is a door with stairs ascending to the 103rd floor (formerly the 102nd).[g] This was built as a disembarkation floor for airships tethered to the building’s spire, and has a circular balcony outside.[15] It is now an access point to reach the spire for maintenance. The room now contains electrical equipment, but celebrities and dignitaries may also be given permission to take pictures there.[130][131] Above the 103rd floor, there is a set of stairs and a ladder to reach the spire for maintenance work.[130] The mast’s 480 windows were all replaced in 2015.[132] The mast serves as the base of the building’s broadcasting antenna.[126] Broadcast stations Antenna for broadcast stations are located at the top of the buildingBroadcasting began at the Empire State Building on December 22, 1931, when NBC and RCA began transmitting experimental television broadcasts from a small antenna erected atop the mast, with two separate transmitters for the visual and audio data. They leased the 85th floor and built a laboratory there.[133] In 1934, RCA was joined by Edwin Howard Armstrong in a cooperative venture to test his FM system from the building’s antenna.[134][135] This setup, which entailed the installation of the world’s first FM transmitter,[135] continued only until October of the next year due to disputes between RCA and Armstrong.[133][134] Specifically, NBC wanted to install more TV equipment in the room where Armstrong’s transmitter was located.[135] After some time, the 85th floor became home to RCA’s New York television operations initially as experimental station W2XBS channel 1 then, from 1941, as commercial station WNBT channel 1 (now WNBC channel 4). NBC’s FM station, W2XDG, began transmitting from the antenna in 1940.[133][136] NBC retained exclusive use of the top of the building until 1950 when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ordered the exclusive deal be terminated. The FCC directive was based on consumer complaints that a common location was necessary for the seven extant New York-area television stations to transmit from so that receiving antennas would not have to be constantly adjusted. Other television broadcasters would later join RCA at the building on the 81st through 83rd floors, often along with sister FM stations.[133] Construction of a dedicated broadcast tower began on July 27, 1950,[137] with TV, and FM, transmissions starting in 1951. The 200-foot (61 m) broadcast tower was completed in 1953.[126][54][138] From 1951, six broadcasters agreed to pay a combined $600,000 per year for the use of the antenna.[139] In 1965, a separate set of FM antennae was constructed ringing the 103rd floor observation area to act as a master antenna.[133] The placement of the stations in the Empire State Building became a major issue with the construction of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in the late 1960s, and early 1970s. The greater height of the Twin Towers would reflect radio waves broadcast from the Empire State Building, eventually resulting in some broadcasters relocating to the newer towers instead of suing the developer, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.[140] Even though the nine stations who were broadcasting from the Empire State Building were leasing their broadcast space until 1984, most of these stations moved to the World Trade Center as soon as it was completed in 1971. The broadcasters obtained a court order stipulating that the Port Authority had to build a mast and transmission equipment in the North Tower, as well as pay the broadcasters’ leases in the Empire State Building until 1984.[141] Only a few broadcasters renewed their leases in the Empire State Building.[142] The September 11 attacks destroyed the World Trade Center and the broadcast centers atop it, leaving most of the city’s stations without a transmitter for ten days until the Armstrong Tower in Alpine, New Jersey was re-activated temporarily.[143] By October 2001, nearly all of the city’s commercial broadcast stations (both television and FM radio) were again transmitting from the top of the Empire State Building. In a report that Congress commissioned about the transition from analog television to digital television, it was stated that the placement of broadcast stations in the Empire State Building was considered “problematic” due to interference from nearby buildings. In comparison, the congressional report stated that the former Twin Towers had very few buildings of comparable height nearby thus signals suffered little interference.[144] In 2003, a few FM stations were relocated to the nearby Condé Nast Building to reduce the number of broadcast stations using the Empire State Building.[145] Eleven television stations and twenty-two FM stations had signed 15-year leases in the building by May 2003. It was expected that a taller broadcast tower in Bayonne, New Jersey, or Governors Island, would be built in the meantime with the Empire State Building being used as a “backup” since signal transmissions from the building were generally of poorer quality.[146] Following the construction of One World Trade Center in the late 2000s and early 2010s, some TV stations began moving their transmitting facilities there.[147] As of 2021, the Empire State Building is home to the following stations:[148] Television: WABC-7, WPIX-11, WXTV-41 Paterson, and WFUT-68 NewarkFM: WNYL-92.3, WPAT-93.1 Paterson, WNYC-93.9, WPLJ-95.5, WXNY-96.3, WQHT-97.1, WSKQ-97.9, WEPN-98.7, WHTZ-100.3 Newark, WCBS-101.1, WFAN-101.9, WNEW-FM-102.7, WKTU-103.5 Lake Success, WAXQ-104.3, WWPR-105.1, WQXR-105.9 Newark, WLTW-106.7, and WBLS-107.5HistoryThe site was previously owned by John Jacob Astor of the prominent Astor family, who had owned the site since the mid-1820s.[149][150] In 1893, John Jacob Astor Sr.’s grandson William Waldorf Astor opened the Waldorf Hotel on the site.[151][152] Four years later, his cousin, John Jacob Astor IV, opened the 16-story Astoria Hotel on an adjacent site.[65][151][153] The two portions of the Waldorf–Astoria hotel had 1,300 bedrooms, making it the largest hotel in the world at the time.[154] After the death of its founding proprietor, George Boldt, in early 1918, the hotel lease was purchased by Thomas Coleman du Pont.[155][156] By the 1920s, the old Waldorf–Astoria was becoming dated and the elegant social life of New York had moved much farther north.[157][39][158] Additionally, many stores had opened on Fifth Avenue north of 34th Street.[159][160] The Astor family decided to build a replacement hotel on Park Avenue[151][161] and sold the hotel to Bethlehem Engineering Corporation in 1928 for $14–16 million.[157] The hotel closed shortly thereafter on May 3, 1929.[65] PlanningEarly plans The Waldorf–Astoria in 1901Bethlehem Engineering Corporation originally intended to build a 25-story office building on the Waldorf–Astoria site. The company’s president, Floyd De L. Brown, paid $100,000 of the $1 million down payment required to start construction on the building, with the promise that the difference would be paid later.[151] Brown borrowed $900,000 from a bank but defaulted on the loan.[162][163] After Brown was unable to secure additional funding,[39] the land was resold to Empire State Inc., a group of wealthy investors that included Louis G. Kaufman, Ellis P. Earle, John J. Raskob, Coleman du Pont, and Pierre S. du Pont.[162][163][164] The name came from the state nickname for New York.[54][165] Alfred E. Smith, a former Governor of New York and U.S. presidential candidate whose 1928 campaign had been managed by Raskob,[161][166] was appointed head of the company.[39][162][163] The group also purchased nearby land so they would have the 2 acres (1 ha) needed for the base, with the combined plot measuring 425 feet (130 m) wide by 200 feet (61 m) long.[165][167] The Empire State Inc. consortium was announced to the public in August 1929.[168][169][167] Concurrently, Smith announced the construction of an 80-story building on the site, to be taller than any other buildings in existence.[167][170] Empire State Inc. contracted William F. Lamb, of architectural firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, to create the building design.[2][165][171] Lamb produced the building drawings in just two weeks using the firm’s earlier designs for the Reynolds Building in Winston-Salem, North Carolina as the basis.[54] He had also been inspired by Raymond Hood’s design for the Daily News Building, which was being constructed at the same time.[165] Concurrently, Lamb’s partner Richmond Shreve created “bug diagrams” of the project requirements.[172] The 1916 Zoning Act forced Lamb to design a structure that incorporated setbacks resulting in the lower floors being larger than the upper floors.[e] Consequently, the building was designed from the top down,[173] giving it a pencil-like shape.[42] The plans were devised within a budget of $50 million and a stipulation that the building be ready for occupancy within 18 months of the start of construction.[39] Design changes Architectural sketch of heights and allowed building areasThe original plan of the building was 50 stories,[45] but was later increased to 60 and then 80 stories.[167] Height restrictions were placed on nearby buildings[167] to ensure that the top fifty floors of the planned 80-story, 1,000-foot-tall (300 m) building[30][174] would have unobstructed views of the city.[167] The New York Times lauded the site’s proximity to mass transit, with the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit’s 34th Street station and the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad’s 33rd Street terminal one block away, as well as Penn Station two blocks away and the Grand Central Terminal nine blocks away at its closest. It also praised the 3,000,000 square feet (280,000 m2) of proposed floor space near “one of the busiest sections in the world”.[167] The Empire State Building was to be a typical office building, but Raskob intended to build it “better and in a bigger way”, according to architectural writer Donald J. Reynolds.[161] While plans for the Empire State Building were being finalized, an intense competition in New York for the title of “world’s tallest building” was underway. 40 Wall Street (then the Bank of Manhattan Building) and the Chrysler Building in Manhattan both vied for this distinction and were already under construction when work began on the Empire State Building.[30] The “Race into the Sky”, as popular media called it at the time, was representative of the country’s optimism in the 1920s, fueled by the building boom in major cities.[175] The race was defined by at least five other proposals, although only the Empire State Building would survive the Wall Street Crash of 1929.[39][h] The 40 Wall Street tower was revised, in April 1929, from 840 feet (260 m) to 925 feet (282 m) making it the world’s tallest.[177] The Chrysler Building added its 185-foot (56 m) steel tip to its roof in October 1929, thus bringing it to a height of 1,046 feet (319 m) and greatly exceeding the height of 40 Wall Street.[30] The Chrysler Building’s developer, Walter Chrysler, realized that his tower’s height would exceed the Empire State Building’s as well, having instructed his architect, William Van Alen, to change the Chrysler’s original roof from a stubby Romanesque dome to a narrow steel spire.[177] Raskob, wishing to have the Empire State Building be the world’s tallest, reviewed the plans and had five floors added as well as a spire; however, the new floors would need to be set back because of projected wind pressure on the extension.[178] On November 18, 1929, Smith acquired a lot at 27–31 West 33rd Street, adding 75 feet (23 m) to the width of the proposed office building’s site.[179][180] Two days later, Smith announced the updated plans for the skyscraper. The plans included an observation deck on the 86th-floor roof at a height of 1,050 feet (320 m), higher than the Chrysler’s 71st-floor observation deck.[178][181] The 1,050-foot Empire State Building would only be 4 feet (1.2 m) taller than the Chrysler Building,[178][182][183] and Raskob was afraid that Chrysler might try to “pull a trick like hiding a rod in the spire and then sticking it up at the last minute.”[45][184][182] The plans were revised one last time in December 1929, to include a 16-story, 200-foot (61 m) metal “crown” and an additional 222-foot (68 m) mooring mast intended for dirigibles. The roof height was now 1,250 feet (380 m), making it the tallest building in the world by far, even without the antenna.[185][45][186] The addition of the dirigible station meant that another floor, the now-enclosed 86th floor, would have to be built below the crown;[186] however, unlike the Chrysler’s spire, the Empire State’s mast would serve a practical purpose.[184] A revised plan was announced to the public in late December 1929, just before the start of construction.[39][158] The final plan was sketched within two hours, the night before the plan was supposed to be presented to the site’s owners in January 1930.[39] The New York Times reported that the spire was facing some “technical problems”, but they were “no greater than might be expected under such a novel plan.”[40] By this time the blueprints for the building had gone through up to fifteen versions before they were approved.[45][187][188] Lamb described the other specifications he was given for the final, approved plan: The program was short enough—a fixed budget, no space more than 28 feet from window to corridor, as many stories of such space as possible, an exterior of limestone, and completion date of [May 1], 1931, which meant a year and six months from the beginning of sketches.[84][45] ConstructionThe contractors were Starrett Brothers and Eken, which were composed of Paul and William A. Starrett and Andrew J. Eken.[189] The project was financed primarily by Raskob and Pierre du Pont,[190] while James Farley’s General Builders Supply Corporation supplied the building materials.[2] John W. Bowser was the construction superintendent of the project,[191] and the structural engineer of the building was Homer G. Balcom.[171][192] The tight completion schedule necessitated the commencement of construction even though the design had yet to be finalized.[193] Hotel demolitionDemolition of the old Waldorf–Astoria began on October 1, 1929.[194] Stripping the building down was an arduous process, as the hotel had been constructed using more rigid material than earlier buildings had been. Furthermore, the old hotel’s granite, wood chips, and “‘precious’ metals such as lead, brass, and zinc” were not in high demand resulting in issues with disposal.[195] Most of the wood was deposited into a woodpile on nearby 30th Street or was burned in a swamp elsewhere. Much of the other materials that made up the old hotel, including the granite and bronze, were dumped into the Atlantic Ocean near Sandy Hook, New Jersey.[196][197] By the time the hotel’s demolition started, Raskob had secured the required funding for the construction of the building.[198] The plan was to start construction later that year but, on October 24, the New York Stock Exchange experienced the major and sudden Wall Street Crash, marking the beginning of the decade-long Great Depression. Despite the economic downturn, Raskob refused to cancel the project because of the progress that had been made up to that point.[168] Neither Raskob, who had ceased speculation in the stock market the previous year, nor Smith, who had no stock investments, suffered financially in the crash.[198] However, most of the investors were affected and as a result, in December 1929, Empire State Inc. obtained a $27.5 million loan from Metropolitan Life Insurance Company so construction could begin.[199] The stock market crash resulted in no demand for new office space; Raskob and Smith nonetheless started construction,[200] as canceling the project would have resulted in greater losses for the investors.[168] Steel structure A worker bolts beams during construction; the Chrysler Building can be seen in the background.A structural steel contract was awarded on January 12, 1930,[201] with excavation of the site beginning ten days later on January 22,[202] before the old hotel had been completely demolished.[203] Two twelve-hour shifts, consisting of 300 men each, worked continuously to dig the 55-foot (17 m) foundation.[202] Small pier holes were sunk into the ground to house the concrete footings that would support the steelwork.[204] Excavation was nearly complete by early March,[205] and construction on the building itself started on March 17,[206][2] with the builders placing the first steel columns on the completed footings before the rest of the footings had been finished.[207] Around this time, Lamb held a press conference on the building plans. He described the reflective steel panels parallel to the windows, the large-block Indiana Limestone facade that was slightly more expensive than smaller bricks, and the building’s vertical lines.[185] Four colossal columns, intended for installation in the center of the building site, were delivered; they would support a combined 10,000,000 pounds (4,500,000 kg) when the building was finished.[208] The structural steel was pre-ordered and pre-fabricated in anticipation of a revision to the city’s building code that would have allowed the Empire State Building’s structural steel to carry 18,000 pounds per square inch (120,000 kPa), up from 16,000 pounds per square inch (110,000 kPa), thus reducing the amount of steel needed for the building. Although the 18,000-psi regulation had been safely enacted in other cities, Mayor Jimmy Walker did not sign the new codes into law until March 26, 1930, just before construction was due to commence.[206][209] The first steel framework was installed on April 1, 1930.[210] From there, construction proceeded at a rapid pace; during one stretch of 10 working days, the builders erected fourteen floors.[211][2] This was made possible through precise coordination of the building’s planning, as well as the mass production of common materials such as windows and spandrels.[212] On one occasion, when a supplier could not provide timely delivery of dark Hauteville marble, Starrett switched to using Rose Famosa marble from a German quarry that was purchased specifically to provide the project with sufficient marble.[204] The scale of the project was massive, with trucks carrying “16,000 partition tiles, 5,000 bags of cement, 450 cubic yards [340 m3] of sand and 300 bags of lime” arriving at the construction site every day.[213] There were also cafes and concession stands on five of the incomplete floors so workers did not have to descend to the ground level to eat lunch.[3][214] Temporary water taps were also built so workers did not waste time buying water bottles from the ground level.[3][215] Additionally, carts running on a small railway system transported materials from the basement storage[3] to elevators that brought the carts to the desired floors where they would then be distributed throughout that level using another set of tracks.[213][85][214] The 57,480 short tons (51,320 long tons) of steel ordered for the project was the largest-ever single order of steel at the time, comprising more steel than was ordered for the Chrysler Building and 40 Wall Street combined.[216][217] According to historian John Tauranac, building materials were sourced from numerous, and distant, sources with “limestone from Indiana, steel girders from Pittsburgh, cement and mortar from upper New York State, marble from Italy, France, and England, wood from northern and Pacific Coast forests, [and] hardware from New England.”[211] The facade, too, used a variety of material, most prominently Indiana limestone but also Swedish black granite, terracotta, and brick.[218] By June 20, the skyscraper’s supporting steel structure had risen to the 26th floor, and by July 27, half of the steel structure had been completed.[213] Starrett Bros. and Eken endeavored to build one floor a day in order to speed up construction, a goal that they almost reached with their pace of 4+1⁄2 stories per week;[219][104] prior to this, the fastest pace of construction for a building of similar height had been 3+1⁄2 stories per week.[219] While construction progressed, the final designs for the floors were being designed from the ground up (as opposed to the general design, which had been from the roof down). Some of the levels were still undergoing final approval, with several orders placed within an hour of a plan being finalized.[219] On September 10, as steelwork was nearing completion, Smith laid the building’s cornerstone during a ceremony attended by thousands. The stone contained a box with contemporary artifacts including the previous day’s New York Times, a U.S. currency set containing all denominations of notes and coins minted in 1930, a history of the site and building, and photographs of the people involved in construction.[220][221] The steel structure was topped out at 1,048 feet (319 m) on September 19, twelve days ahead of schedule and 23 weeks after the start of construction.[222] Workers raised a flag atop the 86th floor to signify this milestone.[219][223] Completion and scale During construction in October 1930; the USS Los Angeles, ZMC-2 and a J-class blimp seen overheadWork on the building’s interior and crowning mast commenced after the topping out.[223] The mooring mast topped out on November 21, two months after the steelwork had been completed.[221][224] Meanwhile, work on the walls and interior was progressing at a quick pace, with exterior walls built up to the 75th floor by the time steelwork had been built to the 95th floor.[225] The majority of the facade was already finished by the middle of November.[3] Because of the building’s height, it was deemed infeasible to have many elevators or large elevator cabins, so the builders contracted with the Otis Elevator Company to make 66 cars that could speed at 1,200 feet per minute (366 m/min), which represented the largest-ever elevator order at the time.[226] In addition to the time constraint builders had, there were also space limitations because construction materials had to be delivered quickly, and trucks needed to drop off these materials without congesting traffic. This was solved by creating a temporary driveway for the trucks between 33rd and 34th Streets, and then storing the materials in the building’s first floor and basements. Concrete mixers, brick hoppers, and stone hoists inside the building ensured that materials would be able to ascend quickly and without endangering or inconveniencing the public.[225] At one point, over 200 trucks made material deliveries at the building site every day.[3] A series of relay and erection derricks, placed on platforms erected near the building, lifted the steel from the trucks below and installed the beams at the appropriate locations.[227] The Empire State Building was structurally completed on April 11, 1931, twelve days ahead of schedule and 410 days after construction commenced.[3] Al Smith shot the final rivet, which was made of solid gold.[228] A photograph of a cable worker, taken by Lewis Hine as part of his project to document the Empire State Building’s constructionPhotograph of a cable worker taken by Lewis HineThe project involved more than 3,500 workers at its peak,[2] including 3,439 on a single day, August 14, 1930.[229] Many of the workers were Irish and Italian immigrants,[230] with a sizable minority of Mohawk ironworkers from the Kahnawake reserve near Montreal.[230][231][232] According to official accounts, five workers died during the construction,[233][234] although the New York Daily News gave reports of 14 deaths[3] and a headline in the socialist magazine The New Masses spread unfounded rumors of up to 42 deaths.[235][234] The Empire State Building cost $40,948,900 to build (equivalent to $571,725,100 in 2020), including demolition of the Waldorf–Astoria. This was lower than the $60 million budgeted for construction.[5] Lewis Hine captured many photographs of the construction, documenting not only the work itself but also providing insight into the daily life of workers in that era.[202][236][237] Hine’s images were used extensively by the media to publish daily press releases.[238] According to the writer Jim Rasenberger, Hine “climbed out onto the steel with the ironworkers and dangled from a derrick cable hundreds of feet above the city to capture, as no one ever had before (or has since), the dizzy work of building skyscrapers”. In Rasenberger’s words, Hine turned what might have been an assignment of “corporate flak” into “exhilarating art”.[239] These images were later organized into their own collection.[240] Onlookers were enraptured by the sheer height at which the steelworkers operated. New York magazine wrote of the steelworkers: “Like little spiders they toiled, spinning a fabric of steel against the sky”.[227] Opening and early years The Empire State Building in 1932; the building had no antenna for the next 21 years, until 1953The Empire State Building officially opened on May 1, 1931, forty-five days ahead of its projected opening date, and eighteen months from the start of construction.[59][2][241] The opening was marked with an event featuring United States President Herbert Hoover, who turned on the building’s lights with the ceremonial button push from Washington, D.C.[242][243][4] Over 350 guests attended the opening ceremony, and following luncheon, at the 86th floor including Jimmy Walker, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Al Smith.[4] An account from that day stated that the view from the luncheon was obscured by a fog, with other landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty being “lost in the mist” enveloping New York City.[244] The Empire State Building officially opened the next day.[244][191] Advertisements for the building’s observatories were placed in local newspapers, while nearby hotels also capitalized on the events by releasing advertisements that lauded their proximity to the newly opened building.[245] According to The New York Times, builders and real estate speculators predicted that the 1,250-foot-tall (380 m) Empire State Building would be the world’s tallest building “for many years”, thus ending the grea

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