10 incredible facts about Empire State Building
Opening in the midst of the Great Depression, the Empire State Building lifted the spirits of American citizens. Designed by the architecture firm of Shreve, Lamb, and Harmon, and engineer H. G. Balcom, the Empire State Building symbolized the development of skyscrapers in the interwar years. New Yorkers followed the construction with an almost cult-like obsession. Telescopes were installed in Madison Square Park for average citizens to gaze at the work in progress. At the time, it was called the world’s greatest monument to man’s ingenuity, skill, mind, and muscle. Hellobigapple.net collected 10 incredible facts about Empire state building.
Last remaining original tenant
Jack Brod, who died in 2008, was the last remaining original tenant of the Empire State Building. His company was the Empire Diamond and Gold Buying Service.
On May 1, 1931, President Herbert Hoover had flipped a switch in the White House to illuminate the Empire State Building’s lobby, opening the building that for more than 40 years would be the world’s tallest. Two months later, Mr. Brod and his father arrived to start a new business, a collection agency that would profit from indebtedness spawned by the Depression.
Stepped structure of Empire State Building
New York City zoning laws require what is called the sky exposure plane (SEP). The SEP was created after several building projects in the Wall Street area built straight up with no setbacks and created incredible canyons with no light or air.
Rather than cap the height of new buildings — which could stymie economic competition — NYC regulated the shape of skyscrapers by requiring “setbacks” above a certain height (which depended on lot size). This created the “wedding cake” skyscrapers NYC is now famous for — think the Woolworth Building, the Chrysler Building, or the Empire State Building — featuring a chunky base topped with tiers of setbacks and a soaring, delicate tower that let light reach the sidewalk.
The Most Beautiful Suicide
On May 1, 1947, Evelyn McHale leapt 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:
I don’t want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me. Could you destroy my body by cremation? I beg of you and my family — don’t have any service for me or remembrance for me. My fiance asked me to marry him in June. I don’t think I would make a good wife for anybody. He is much better off without me. Tell my father, I have too many of my mother’s tendencies.
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).
Overall more than 30 people have attempted suicide over the years by jumping from the upper parts of the building, with most attempts being successful. 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.
Built in 13 months
The entire Empire State Building was constructed in just one year and 45 days. The Empire State Building came in on time and under budget. Because the Great Depression significantly lowered labor costs, the cost of the building was only $40,948,900 (below the $50 million expected price tag).
The Empire State Building officially opened on May 1, 1931 to a lot of fanfare. A ribbon was cut, Mayor Jimmy Walker gave a speech, and President Herbert Hoover lit up the tower with a push of a button (symbolically pushed at a specific time in Washington, D.C.).
The Empire State Building had become the tallest building in the world and would keep that record until the completion of the World Trade Center in New York City in 1972.
Empire State Building Plane Crash
On July 28, 1945, Lt. Colonel William Smith crashed a U.S. Army B-25 bomber into the north side of the Empire State Building’s 79th floor. The city was cloaked in a dense fog on the morning of the crash, and the Lt. Colonel, who was on his way to Newark to pick up his commanding officer, somehow ended up over LaGuardia asking for a weather report. Although he was encouraged to land, Smith still requested military permission to continue to Newark. The last transmission from the LaGuardia tower to the plane was a foreboding warning: “From where I’m sitting, I can’t see the top of the Empire State Building.”
In an attempt to regain visibility, Smith lowered the bomber only to find himself amid the towering skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan. Initially, he was headed straight for the New York Central Building but was able to shift west avoiding contact. He continued to swerve around several other buildings until his luck ran out and he found himself headed straight for the Empire State Building. The pilot tried to climb and twist away but it was too late. Upon impact, the bomber made a hole in the building measuring eighteen feet high and twenty feet wide, and the plane’s high-octane fuel exploded, shooting flames throughout the building that reached down to the 75th floor. 13 people died.
Blimp Parking
By far the most unusual aspect of the Empire State Building’s design concerned its 200-foot tower. Convinced that transatlantic airship travel was the wave of the future, the building’s owners originally constructed the mast as a docking port for lighter-than-air dirigibles. The harebrained scheme called for the airships to maneuver alongside the building and tether themselves to a winching apparatus. Passengers would then exit via an open-air gangplank, check in at a customs office and make their way to the streets of Manhattan in a mere seven minutes.
Despite early enthusiasm for the project, the high winds near the building’s rooftop proved all but impossible for pilots to negotiate. The closest thing to a “landing” came in September 1931, when a small dirigible tethered itself to the spire for a few minutes. Two weeks later, a Goodyear blimp dropped a stack of newspapers on the roof a part of a publicity stunt, but the airship plan was abandoned shortly thereafter.
Electric Connection
Static electricity gathers at high heights, and under the right atmospheric conditions, couples can experience a slight electric shock when they kiss.
Also, every year on Valentine’s Day, couples who marry on the 80th floor become members of the Empire State Building Wedding Club. They receive free admission to the observatory each year on February 14 (their anniversary) thereafter.
Happy Anniversary, Dad
When he drew up its plans in 1929, architect William Lamb of the firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon is said to have modeled the Empire State Building after Winston-Salem, North Carolina’s Reynolds Building — which he had previously designed — and Carew Tower in Cincinnati. The two earlier Art Deco buildings are now often cited as the Empire State’s architectural ancestors. On the Reynolds Building’s 50th anniversary in 1979, the Empire State Building’s general manager even sent a card that read, “Happy Anniversary, Dad.”
Modern Marvel and America’s Sweetheart
In a 2007 poll conducted by the American Institute of Architects, the Empire State Building was named “America’s Favorite Architecture,” ahead of even The White House. The Empire State Building lobby is one of the few interiors in New York to be designated a historic landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
The American Society of Civil Engineers named the Empire State Building one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.
Big lights will inspire you
The Empire State Building puts on quite a show with colored light displays throughout the year to mark holidays and other events. The first light to shine from the top of the Empire State Building was a searchlight beacon that announced to the city that Franklin D. Roosevelt had been elected president in 1932. In 1964, the top 30 floors were illuminated by new floodlights designed to transform the building into a nighttime attraction for the World’s Fair. These days, the Empire State Building shines a rainbow of colors — like green for St.Patrick’s Day, pink and white for breast cancer awareness, or lavender for the anniversary of Stonewall.
Empire state building tower lights calendar is available here.