Empire State Building

The Empire State Building is located on the west side of Fifth Avenue, between 33rd Street to the south and 34th Street to the north, in the Midtown South neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States. 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. Although physically located in South Midtown, a mixed residential and commercial area, the building is so large that it was assigned its own ZIP Code, 10118; , it is one of 43 buildings in New York City that have their own ZIP codes. 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, and Koreatown on 32nd Street between Madison and Sixth avenues. To the east of the Empire State Building is Murray Hill, a neighborhood with a mix of residential, commercial, and entertainment activity. The block directly to the northeast contains the B. Altman and Company Building, which houses the City University of New York's Graduate Center. The nearest New York City Subway stations are 34th Street–Herald Square, one block west, and 33rd Street at Park Avenue, two blocks east; there is also a PATH station at 33rd Street and Sixth Avenue. ==Architecture==

The Empire State Building was designed by Shreve, Lamb and Harmon in the Art Deco style. The Empire State Building is tall to its 102nd floor, or including its pinnacle. It was the first building in the world to be more than 100 stories tall, though only the lowest 86 stories are usable. The first through 85th floors contain of commercial and office space, while the 86th floor contains an observatory. 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. Atop the 102nd story is the pinnacle, much of which is covered by broadcast antennas, and surmounted with a lightning rod. Form The Empire State Building has a symmetrical massing because of its large lot and relatively short base. Its articulation consists of three horizontal sections—a base, shaft, and capital—similar to the components of a column. The setback above the 5th story is deep on all sides. and sourced from a quarry in south-central Indiana; the panels give the building its signature blonde color. According to official fact sheets, the facade uses of limestone and granite, ten million bricks, and of aluminum and stainless steel. The decorative features on the facade are largely geometric, in contrast with earlier buildings, whose decorations often were intended to represent a specific narrative. The 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. 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. The windows in each bay are separated by vertical nickel-chrome steel mullions and connected by horizontal aluminum spandrels between each floor. The windows are placed within stainless-steel frames, which saved money by eliminating 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. These were later swapped for four "Freedom Lights" in 1956. The lights were shut off from November 1973 to July 1974 because of the energy crisis at the time. 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. New red, white, and blue metal-halide lights were installed in time for the country's bicentennial that July. 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. 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". The structure was lit in red, white, and blue for several months after the September 11 attacks in 2001. On January 13, 2012, the building was lit in red, orange, and yellow to honor the 60th anniversary of the NBC program The Today Show. 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. The evening after iconic actor James Earl Jones died, September 9, 2024, the building was lit up to look like Jones's iconic Darth Vader villain from "Star Wars." In addition to lightings, the Empire State Building is able to do immersive visual projections on the building's exterior. It partnered with Netflix in May 2022 to celebrate the return of Stranger Things fourth season by projecting the Upside Down onto the Empire State Building. 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. The computer-controlled system allows the building to be illuminated in ways that were unable to be done previously with plastic gels. 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. Also, on November 26, 2012, the building had its first synchronized light show, using music from recording artist Alicia Keys. Artists such as Eminem and OneRepublic have been featured in later shows, including the building's annual Holiday Music-to-Lights Show. The building's owners adhere to strict standards in using the lights; for instance, they do not use the lights to play advertisements. The interior required of elevator cable and of electrical wires. It has a total floor area of , and each of the floors in the base cover . This gives the building capacity for 20,000 tenants and 15,000 visitors. The riveted steel frame of the building was originally designed to handle all of the building's gravitational stresses and wind loads. 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 versus the Willis Tower's and the John Hancock Center's . 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 . Utilities are grouped in a central shaft. The western ends of the north and south walls include escalators to a mezzanine level. 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). The relief, which was intended to provide a welcoming effect, contains an embossed outline of the building, with rays radiating from the spire and the sun behind it. 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. A scale model of the building was also placed south of the security desk. 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. 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. 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 etched-glass installation, in the lobby. Elevators The Empire State Building has 73 elevators in all, including service elevators. Its original 64 elevators, built by the Otis Elevator Company, in a central core and are of varying heights, with the longest of these elevators reaching from the lobby to the 80th floor. 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. 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. The elevators were designed to move at . At the time of the skyscraper's construction, their practical speed was limited to per city law, but this limit was removed shortly after the building opened. 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. The elevators were mechanically operated until 2011, when they were replaced with automatic elevators during the $550 million renovation of the building. An additional elevator connects the 86th and 102nd floor observatories, which allows visitors access to 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. Observation decks The 80th, 86th, and 102nd floors contain observatories. The latter two observatories saw a combined average of four million visitors per year in 2010. 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. Though most tickets allow visitors to go to the 86th floor, an additional fee is charged for access to 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. The 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. The observation decks were redesigned in mid-1979. 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. The design of the Observatory Experience was inspired by the plans and designs of the original Empire State Building. 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. In 2016, New York City's official tourism website made note of only three lines: the security check line, the ticket purchase line, and the second elevator line. 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 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. 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. New York Skyride In early 1994, a motion simulator attraction was built on the 2nd floor, as a complement to the observation deck. The original cinematic presentation lasted approximately 25 minutes, while the simulation was about eight minutes. The ride had two incarnations. The original version, which ran from 1994 until around 2002, featured James Doohan, Star Trek Scotty, as the airplane's pilot who humorously tried to keep the flight under control during a storm. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, the ride was closed. 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. The simulator received mixed reviews, with assessments of the ride ranging from "great" to "satisfactory" to "corny". Spire Above the 102nd floor The final stage of the building was the installation of a hollow mast, a steel shaft fitted with elevators and utilities, above the 86th floor. The spire of the Empire State Building was originally intended to serve as a mooring mast for zeppelins and other airships, although the plan was abandoned when it was determined that high winds would make that impossible. From there, stairs would lead to the 102nd floor, where passengers would enter the airships. The airships would have been moored to the spire at the equivalent of the building's 106th floor. As constructed, the mast contains four rectangular tiers topped by a cylindrical shaft with a conical pinnacle. On the 102nd (formerly 101st) floor, there is a door with stairs ascending to a 103rd (formerly 102nd) floor. This top level, originally planned to be the airship docking station, now contains electrical equipment and features an exterior balcony. The floor is inaccessible to the public but celebrities and dignitaries may be given permission to take pictures there. A set of stairs and a ladder ascend to the spire and are used by maintenance workers. The mast's 480 windows were all replaced in 2015. The mast serves as the base of the building's broadcasting antenna. Inflatable objects have sometimes been mounted to the spire for promotional purposes. For example, a King Kong balloon was attached to the spire in 1983 to mark the 50th anniversary of the character's introduction, and an inflatable dragon was placed on the spire in 2024 to promote the TV series House of Dragon. Broadcast stations Broadcasting 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. This setup, which entailed the installation of the world's first FM transmitter, Specifically, NBC wanted to install more TV equipment in the room where Armstrong's transmitter was located. 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. with TV, and FM, transmissions starting in 1951. The broadcast tower was completed in 1953. From 1951, six broadcasters agreed to pay a combined $600,000 per year for the use of the antenna. In 1965, a separate set of FM antennae was constructed ringing the 103rd floor observation area to act as a master antenna. 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. 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. Only a few broadcasters renewed their leases in the Empire State Building. 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. 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. 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. 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. Following the construction of One World Trade Center in the late 2000s and early 2010s, some TV stations began moving their transmitting facilities there. , the Empire State Building is home to the following stations: • Television: WABC-7, WPIX-11, WXTV-41 Paterson, and WFUT-68 Newark • FM: WINS-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-107.5 • NOAA Weather Radio station KWO35 broadcasts at a frequency of 162.550 MHz from the National Weather Service in Upton, New York. ==History==

The site was previously owned by John Jacob Astor of the prominent Astor family, which had owned the site since the mid-1820s. In 1893, John Jacob Astor Sr.'s grandson William Waldorf Astor opened the Waldorf Hotel on the site. Four years later, his cousin, John Jacob Astor IV, opened the 16-story Astoria Hotel on an adjacent site. After the death of its founding proprietor, George Boldt, in early 1918, the hotel lease was purchased by Thomas Coleman du Pont. By the 1920s, the old Waldorf–Astoria was becoming dated and the elegant social life of New York had moved much farther north. Additionally, many stores had opened on Fifth Avenue north of 34th Street. The Astor family decided to build a replacement hotel on Park Avenue and sold the hotel to Bethlehem Engineering Corporation in 1928 for $14–16 million. The hotel closed shortly thereafter on May 3, 1929. The name came from the state nickname for New York. Alfred E. Smith, a former Governor of New York and U.S. presidential candidate whose 1928 campaign had been managed by Raskob, The Empire State Inc. consortium was announced to the public in August 1929. 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 , higher than the Chrysler's 71st-floor observation deck. The 1,050-foot Empire State Building would only be taller than the Chrysler Building, 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." The plans were revised one last time in December 1929, to include a 16-story, metal "crown" and an additional mooring mast intended for dirigibles. The roof height was now , making it the tallest building in the world by far, even without the antenna. The addition of the dirigible station meant that another floor, the 86th, would have to be built below the crown; however, unlike the Chrysler's spire, the Empire State's mast would serve a practical purpose. A revised plan was announced to the public in late December 1929, just before the start of construction. Lamb described the other specifications he was given for the final, approved plan: Construction The contractors were Starrett Brothers and Eken, which were composed of Paul and William A. Starrett and Andrew J. Eken. The project was financed primarily by Raskob and Pierre du Pont, while James Farley's General Builders Supply Corporation supplied the building materials. John W. Bowser was the construction superintendent of the project, and the structural engineer of the building was Homer G. Balcom. The tight completion schedule necessitated the commencement of construction even though the design had yet to be finalized. Hotel demolition Demolition of the old Waldorf–Astoria began on October 1, 1929. 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. 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. By the time the hotel's demolition started, Raskob had secured the required funding for the construction of the building. 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. 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. 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. The stock market crash resulted in no demand for new office space; Raskob and Smith nonetheless started construction, as canceling the project would have resulted in greater losses for the investors. Steel structure can be seen in the background. A structural steel contract was awarded on January 12, 1930, with excavation of the site beginning ten days later on January 22, before the old hotel had been completely demolished. Two twelve-hour shifts, consisting of 300 men each, worked continuously to dig the deep foundation. Small pier holes were sunk into the ground to house the concrete footings that would support the steelwork. Excavation was nearly complete by early March, and construction on the building itself started on March 17, with the builders placing the first steel columns on the completed footings before the rest of the footings had been finished. 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. Four colossal columns, intended for installation in the center of the building site, were delivered; they would support a combined when the building was finished. 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 , up from , 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. The first steel framework was installed on April 1, 1930. From there, construction proceeded at a rapid pace; during one stretch of 10 working days, the builders erected fourteen floors. 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. 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. The scale of the project was massive, with trucks carrying "16,000 partition tiles, 5,000 bags of cement, of sand and 300 bags of lime" arriving at the construction site every day. 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. Temporary water taps were installed so workers did not waste time buying water bottles from the ground level. Carts running on a small railway system transported materials from the basement storage to elevators that brought the carts to the desired floors where they would then be distributed throughout that level using another set of tracks. 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. The steel structure was topped out at on September 19, twelve days ahead of schedule and 23 weeks after the start of construction. Workers raised a flag atop the 86th floor to signify this milestone. Completion and scale , ZMC-2 and a J-class blimp seen overhead Work on the building's interior and crowning mast commenced after the topping out. 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. The majority of the facade was already finished by the middle of November. 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 , which represented the largest-ever elevator order at the time. 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. At one point, over 200 trucks made material deliveries at the building site every day. 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. The Empire State Building was structurally completed on April 11, 1931, twelve days ahead of schedule and 410 days after construction commenced. Al Smith shot the final rivet, which was made of solid gold. The project involved more than 3,500 workers at its peak, including 3,439 on a single day, August 14, 1930. Many of the workers were Irish and Italian immigrants, with a sizable minority of Mohawk ironworkers from the Kahnawake reserve near Montreal. According to official accounts, five workers died during the construction, although the New York Daily News gave reports of 14 deaths and a headline in the socialist magazine The New Masses spread unfounded rumors of up to 42 deaths. The Empire State Building cost $40,948,900 to build (equivalent to $ in ), including demolition of the Waldorf–Astoria. This was lower than the $60 million budgeted for construction. 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. Hine's images were used extensively by the media to publish daily press releases. 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". These images were later organized into their own collection. Over 350 guests attended the opening ceremony, and following luncheon, at the 86th floor including Jimmy Walker, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Al Smith. The Empire State Building officially opened the next day. Technically, it was believed possible to build a tower of up to , but it was deemed uneconomical to do so, especially during the Great Depression. As the tallest building in the world, at that time, and the first one to exceed 100 floors, the Empire State Building became an icon of the city and, ultimately, of the nation. In 1932, the Fifth Avenue Association gave the building its 1931 "gold medal" for architectural excellence, signifying that the Empire State had been the best-designed building on Fifth Avenue to open in 1931. A year later, on March 2, 1933, the movie King Kong was released. The movie, which depicted a large stop motion ape named Kong climbing the Empire State Building, made the still-new building into a cinematic icon. Tenants and tourism At the beginning of 1931, Fifth Avenue was experiencing high demand for storefront space, with only 12 of 224 stores being unoccupied. The Empire State Building, along with 500 Fifth Avenue and 608 Fifth Avenue, were expected to add a combined 11 stores. The office space was less successful, as the Empire State Building's opening had coincided with the Great Depression in the United States. co-established the Empire Diamond Corporation with his father in the building in mid-1931 and rented space in the building until he died in 2008. In 1931, NBC took up tenancy, leasing space on the 85th floor for radio broadcasts. Even if the airship could successfully navigate all these obstacles, its crew would have to jettison some ballast by releasing water onto the streets below in order to maintain stability, and then tie the craft's nose to the spire with no mooring lines securing the tail end of the craft. The airship then attempted to dock at the mast, but its ballast spilled and the craft was rocked by unpredictable eddies. The near-disaster scuttled plans to turn the building's spire into an airship terminal, although one blimp did manage to make a single newspaper delivery afterward. On July 28, 1945, a North American B-25 Mitchell bomber crashed into the north side of the Empire State Building, between the 79th and 80th floors. One engine completely penetrated the building and landed in a neighboring block, while the other engine and part of the landing gear plummeted down an elevator shaft. Fourteen people were killed in the incident, Profitability causes the building to taper with height.By the 1940s, the Empire State Building was 98 percent occupied. with a minimum asking price of $50 million. The sale was brokered by the Charles F. Noyes Company, a prominent real estate firm in upper Manhattan, That same year, six news companies formed a partnership to pay a combined annual fee of $600,000 to use the building's antenna, The following year, the American Society of Civil Engineers named the building one of the "Seven Modern Civil Engineering Wonders". In 1961, Lawrence A. Wien signed a contract to purchase the Empire State Building for $65 million, with Harry B. Helmsley acting as partners in the building's operating lease. This became the new highest price for a single structure. Helmsley, Wien, and Peter Malkin quickly started a program of minor improvement projects, including the first-ever full-building facade refurbishment and window-washing in 1962, the installation of new flood lights on the 72nd floor in 1964, Loss of "tallest building" title 's North Tower surpassed the Empire State Building in height by 1970. In 1961, the same year that Helmsley, Wien, and Malkin had purchased the Empire State Building, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey formally backed plans for a new World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. The plan originally included 66-story twin towers with column-free open spaces. The Empire State's owners and real estate speculators were worried that the twin towers' of office space would create a glut of rentable space in Manhattan as well as take away the Empire State Building's profits from lessees. A revision in the World Trade Center's plan brought the twin towers to each or 110 stories, taller than the Empire State. Opponents of the new project included prominent real-estate developer Robert Tishman, as well as Wien's Committee for a Reasonable World Trade Center. In response to Wien's opposition, Port Authority executive director Austin J. Tobin said that Wien was only opposing the project because it would overshadow his Empire State Building as the world's tallest building. The World Trade Center's twin towers started construction in 1966. The following year, the Ostankino Tower in Moscow succeeded the Empire State Building as the tallest freestanding structure in the world. In December 1975, the observation deck was opened on the 110th floor of the Twin Towers, significantly higher than the 86th floor observatory on the Empire State Building. The Empire State Building celebrated its 50th anniversary on May 1, 1981, with a much-publicized, but poorly received, laser light show, as well as an "Empire State Building Week" that ran through to May 8. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) voted to designate the building and its lobby as city landmarks on May 19, 1981. Capital improvements were made to the Empire State Building during the early to mid-1990s at a cost of $55 million. Because all of the building's windows were being replaced at the same time, the LPC mandated a paint-color test for the windows; the test revealed that the Empire State Building's original windows were actually red. The improvements also entailed replacing alarm systems, elevators, windows, and air conditioning; making the observation deck compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA); and refurbishing the limestone facade. The observation deck renovation was added after disability rights groups and the United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the building in 1992, in what was the first lawsuit filed by an organization under the new law. A settlement was reached in 1994, in which Empire State Building Associates agreed to add ADA-compliant elements, such as new elevators, ramps, and automatic doors, during the renovation. Prudential sold the property in 1991 for $42 million to a buyer representing hotelier , who was imprisoned at the time in connection with the deadly at the in Tokyo. In 1994, Donald Trump entered into a joint-venture agreement with Yokoi, with a shared goal of breaking the lease on the land in an effort to gain total ownership of the building so that, if successful, the two could reap the potential profits of merging the ownership of the building with the land beneath it. Having secured a half-ownership of the land, Trump devised plans to take ownership of the building itself so he could renovate it, even though Helmsley and Malkin had already started their refurbishment project. Trump had intended to have Empire State Building Associates evicted for violating the terms of their lease, This led to Helmsley's companies countersuing Trump in May. This sparked a series of lawsuits and countersuits that lasted several years, 21st century 2000s Following the destruction of the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks, the Empire State Building again became the tallest building in New York City, but was only the second-tallest building in the Americas after the Sears (later Willis) Tower in Chicago. In 2002, Trump and Yokoi sold their land claim to the Empire State Building Associates, now headed by Malkin, in a $57.5 million transaction. This action merged the building's title and lease for the first time in half a century. Even though she maintained her ownership stake in the building until the post-consolidation IPO in October 2013, Leona Helmsley handed over day-to-day operations of the building in 2006 to Peter Malkin's company. In 2008, the building was temporarily "stolen" by the New York Daily News to show how easy it was to transfer the deed on a property, since city clerks were not required to validate the submitted information, as well as to help demonstrate how fraudulent deeds could be used to obtain large mortgages and then have individuals disappear with the money. The paperwork submitted to the city included the names of Fay Wray, the famous star of King Kong, and Willie Sutton, a notorious New York bank robber. The newspaper then transferred the deed back over to the legitimate owners, who at that time were Empire State Land Associates. 2010s to present (seen in the distance) surpassed the Empire State Building's height on April 30, 2012. Starting in 2009, the building's public areas received a $550 million renovation, with improvements to the air conditioning and waterproofing, renovations to the observation deck and main lobby, About $120 million was spent on improving the energy efficiency of the building, with the goal of reducing energy emissions by 38% within five years. Air conditioning operating costs on hot days were reduced, saving $17 million of the project's capital cost immediately and partially funding some of the other retrofits. On April 30, 2012, One World Trade Center topped out, surpassing the Empire State Building as the city's tallest skyscraper. The ESRT was a public company, having begun trading publicly on the New York Stock Exchange the previous year. In August 2016, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) was issued new fully diluted shares equivalent to 9.9% of the trust; this investment gave them partial ownership of the entirety of the ESRT's portfolio, and as a result, partial ownership of the Empire State Building. The trust's president John Kessler called it an "endorsement of the company's irreplaceable assets". The investment has been described by the real-estate magazine The Real Deal as "an unusual move for a sovereign wealth fund", as these funds typically buy direct stakes in buildings rather than real estate companies. Other foreign entities that have a stake in the ESRT include investors from Norway, Japan, and Australia. The new lobby includes several technological features, including large LED panels, digital ticket kiosks in nine languages, and a two-story architectural model of the building surrounded by two metal staircases. A exhibit with nine galleries opened in July 2019. The 102nd floor observatory, the third phase of the redesign, reopened to the public on October 12, 2019. The final portion of the renovations to be completed was a new observatory on the 80th floor, which opened on December 2, 2019. To minimize disruption to the observation decks, the restoration work took place at night. The project was completed by late 2020. ==Height records==

The world record held by the Empire State Building for the longest was for the tallest skyscraper (to structural height). The building held this distinction for 42 years, being surpassed by the North Tower of the World Trade Center in October 1970. The Empire State Building was also the tallest human-made structure in the world before it was surpassed by the Griffin Television Tower Oklahoma (KWTV Mast) in 1954, and the tallest freestanding structure in the world until the completion of the Ostankino Tower in 1967. 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. The Empire State Building remained the tallest building in New York until the new One World Trade Center reached a greater height in April 2012. , it is the seventh-tallest building in New York City and the tenth-tallest in the United States. The Empire State Building is the 49th-tallest in the world . It is also the eleventh-tallest freestanding structure in the Americas behind the tallest U.S. buildings and the CN Tower. == Notable tenants ==

, the building housed around 1,000 businesses. Current tenants include: Former tenants include: • The National Catholic Welfare Council (now Catholic Relief Services) • China National Tourist Office • Schenley Industries • YWCA of the USA ==Incidents==

1945 plane crash |alt=A black-and-white photo of airplane wreckage embedded in the facade, high up At 9:40 am on July 28, 1945, a North American B-25 Mitchell bomber, piloted in thick fog by Lieutenant Colonel William Franklin Smith Jr., crashed into the north side of the Empire State Building between the 79th and 80th floors (then the offices of the National Catholic Welfare Council). The other engine and part of the landing gear plummeted down an elevator shaft, causing a fire that was extinguished in 40 minutes. Fourteen people were killed in the incident. Despite the damage and loss of life, many floors were open two days later. Also as a result of the crash, the Civil Aeronautics Administration enacted strict regulations regarding flying over New York City, setting a minimum flying altitude of above sea level regardless of the weather conditions. A year later, on July 24, 1946, another airplane narrowly missed striking the building. The unidentified twin-engine plane scraped past the observation deck, frightening the tourists there. 2000 elevator plunge On January 24, 2000, an elevator in the building suddenly descended 40 stories after a cable that controlled the cabin's maximum speed was severed. The elevator fell from the 44th floor to the fourth floor, where a narrowed elevator shaft provided a second safety system. Despite the 40-floor fall, both of the passengers in the cabin at the time were only slightly injured. After the fall, building inspectors reviewed all of the building's elevators. Suicide attempts Because of the building's iconic status, it and other Midtown landmarks are common locations for suicide attempts. More than 30 people have attempted suicide over the years by jumping from the upper parts of the building, with most attempts being successful. The first suicide from the building occurred on April 7, 1931, before it was even completed, when a carpenter who had been laid off went to the 58th floor and jumped. The first suicide after the building's opening occurred from the 86th floor observatory in February 1935, when Irma P. Eberhardt fell onto a marquee sign. On December 16, 1943, William Lloyd Rambo jumped to his death from the 86th floor, landing amidst Christmas shoppers on the street below. In the early morning of September 27, 1946, shell-shocked Marine Douglas W. Brashear Jr. jumped from the 76th-floor window of the Grant Advertising Agency; police found his shoes from his body. On May 1, 1947, Evelyn McHale leaped to her death from the 86th-floor observation deck and landed on a 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 that 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 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). A mesh fence was put up around the 86th floor terrace in December 1947 after five people tried to jump during three weeks in October and November of that year. By then, sixteen people had died from suicide jumps. Two people have survived falls by not falling more than a floor. On December 2, 1979, Elvita Adams jumped from the 86th floor, only to be blown back onto a ledge on the 85th floor by a gust of wind and left with a broken hip. On April 25, 2013, a man fell from the 86th floor observation deck, but he landed alive with minor injuries on an 85th-floor ledge where security guards brought him inside and paramedics transferred him to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. Shootings Two fatal shootings have occurred in the direct vicinity of the Empire State Building. Abu Kamal, a 69-year-old Palestinian teacher, shot seven people on the 86th floor observation deck during the afternoon of February 23, 1997. He killed one person and wounded six others before committing suicide. Kamal reportedly committed the shooting in response to events happening in Palestine and Israel. On the morning of August 24, 2012, 58-year-old Jeffrey T. Johnson shot and killed a former co-worker on the building's Fifth Avenue sidewalk. He had been laid off from his job in 2011. Two police officers confronted the gunman, and he aimed his firearm at them. They responded by firing 16 shots, killing him but also wounding nine bystanders. Most of the injured were hit by bullet fragments, although three took direct hits from bullets. == Impact ==

, As the tallest building in the world and the first one to exceed 100 floors, the Empire State Building immediately became an icon of the city and of the nation. The historian John Tauranac called it "'the' twentieth-century New York building", despite the existence of taller and more modernist buildings. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to designate the building and its lobby as city landmarks on May 19, 1981, The building became a National Historic Landmark in 1986 in close alignment with the New York City Landmarks report. Contemporary reception Early architectural critics also focused on the Empire State Building's exterior ornamentation. Architectural critic Talbot Hamlin wrote in 1931, "That it is the world's tallest building is purely incidental." George Shepard Chappell, writing in The New Yorker under the pseudonym "T-Square", wrote the same year that the Empire State Building had a "palpably enormous" appeal to the general public, and that "its difference and distinction [lay] in the extreme sensitiveness of its entire design". Edmund Wilson of The New Republic wrote that the building's neutral color palette made it "New York's handsomest skyscraper".--> As icon Early in the building's history, travel companies such as Short Line Motor Coach Service and New York Central Railroad used the building as an icon to symbolize the city. In a 1932 survey of 50 American architects, fourteen ranked the Empire State Building as the United States' best building; the Empire State Building received more votes than any building except the Lincoln Memorial. After the construction of the first World Trade Center, architect Paul Goldberger noted that the Empire State Building "is famous for being tall, but it is good enough to be famous for being good." The building was originally a symbol of hope in a country devastated by the Depression, as well as a work of accomplishment by newer immigrants. The writer Benjamin Flowers states that the Empire State was "a building intended to celebrate a new America, built by men (both clients and construction workers) who were themselves new Americans." The architectural critic Jonathan Glancey refers to the building as an "icon of American design". The Empire State Building has been hailed as an example of a "wonder of the world" due to the massive effort expended during construction. The Washington Star listed it as part of one of the "seven wonders of the modern world" in 1931, while Holiday magazine wrote in 1958 that the Empire State's height would be taller than the combined heights of the Eiffel Tower and the Great Pyramid of Giza. The American Society of Civil Engineers also declared the building "A Modern Civil Engineering Wonder of the United States" in 1958 Ron Miller, in a 2010 book, also described the Empire State Building as one of the "seven wonders of engineering". It has often been called the Eighth Wonder of the World as well, an appellation that it has held since shortly after opening. The panels installed in the lobby in 1963 reflected this, showing the seven original wonders alongside the Empire State Building. The building has also inspired replicas. The New York-New York Hotel and Casino in Paradise, Nevada, contains the "Empire Tower", a 47-story replica of the Empire State Building. A portion of the hotel's interior was also designed to resemble the Empire State Building's interior. The building has also been featured in other works, such as "Daleks in Manhattan", a 2007 episode of the TV series Doctor Who; and Empire, an eight-hour black-and-white silent film by Andy Warhol, which was later added to the Library of Congress's National Film Registry. Throughout its history, the Empire State Building has welcomed celebrities, royalty, and dignitaries to visit the observation deck. From celebrities like Taylor Swift and Zendaya to royalty such as Prince William, the Empire State Building hosts notable figures every year. Empire State Building Run-Up The Empire State Building Run-Up, a foot race from ground level to the 86th-floor observation deck, has been held annually since 1978. It is organized by NYCRUNS. Its participants are referred to both as runners and as climbers, and are often tower running enthusiasts. The race covers a vertical distance of and takes in 1,576 steps. The record time is 9 minutes and 33 seconds, achieved by Australian professional cyclist Paul Crake in 2003, at a climbing rate of per hour. ==See also==