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Empire State Building , NY

Empire State Building

The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper on Fifth Avenue between West 33rd and 34th Streets in Midtown ManhattanNew York City. Designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, the building has a roof height of 1,250 feet (380 m), and with its antenna included, it stands a total of 1,454 feet (443.2 m) tall. Its name is derived from “Empire State“, the nickname for New York. As of 2017 the Empire State Building is the fifth-tallest completed skyscraper in the United States and the 28th-tallest in the world. It is also the sixth-tallest freestanding structure in the Americas.

The site of the Empire State Building was first developed as part of John Thompson’s farm in the early 18th century. In the late 1820s, it came into the possession of the prominent Astor family, with John Jacob Astor’sdescendants building the Waldorf–Astoria Hotel on the site in the 1890s. By the 1920s, the family sold the outdated hotel, and the site indirectly ended up under the ownership of Empire State Inc., a business venture that included businessman John J. Raskob and former New York governor Al Smith. The Empire State Building was originally supposed to be a standard 50-story office building. However, the original plans were revised fifteen times, with the tower ultimately being expanded to a 1,250-foot building with 86 stories and an airship mast on top. This ensured the Empire State Building would be the world’s tallest building, beating the Chrysler Buildingand 40 Wall Street, two other Manhattan skyscrapers under construction at the time that were also vying for that distinction.

Demolition of the Waldorf–Astoria began in October 1929, and the foundation of the Empire State Building was excavated before demolition was even complete. Construction on the building itself started on March 17, 1930, with an average construction rate of one floor per day. A well-coordinated schedule meant that the 86 stories were topped out on September 19, six months after construction started, and the mast was completed by November 21. From that point, interior work proceeded at a quick pace, and the Empire State Building was opened on May 1, 1931, thirteen and a half months after the first steel beam was erected. Despite the publicity surrounding the building’s construction, the building’s owners failed to make a profit until the early 1950s. However, it has been a popular tourist attraction since opening, with around 4 million visitors to the building’s 86th and 102nd floor observatories every year.

The Empire State Building stood as the world’s tallest building for nearly 40 years, from its completion until the topping out of the original World Trade Center‘s North Tower in Lower Manhattan in late 1970. Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Empire State Building was again the tallest building in New York until the new One World Trade Center reached a greater height in April 2012.

The Empire State Building is an American cultural icon and has been featured in more than 250 TV shows and movies since the film King Kong was released in 1933. A symbol of New York City, the tower has been named as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The Empire State Building and its ground-floor interior have been designated as a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, and they were confirmed as such by the New York City Board of Estimate. The building was also designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986, and it was ranked number one on the American Institute of Architects‘ List of America’s Favorite Architecture in 2007.

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