Empire State Building, New York, United States

The building that united a country.Height: 437 meters

Cost to build: US$41 million

Completion date: May 1, 1931

Fast fact: The Empire State Building took only one year and 45 days to build, or 7 million man-hours, a record to this day for a skyscraper of its height.
"With the passing of the World Trade Center, it became even more entrenched in the hearts and souls of New Yorkers and the rest of the world.” -- Michael Greene.

JAY-Z didn’t pick his song names out of nowhere. The 443-meter Empire State Building is the icon of New York, where “dreams are made” and King Kong went berserk.

Built during the Great Depression, this gigantic building has been an American symbol for 70 years, providing a solid anchor through the ebbs and flows of its economy. It is also the longest holder of the “World’s Tallest Building” title, from 1931 to 1972.

The building, whose exterior lighting changes regularly to promote charitable causes and mark significant events, is one of the few skyscrapers that offers wedding packages at its observatory.

Overall structure

  

The Empire State Building was the highest building in the world for forty Years. It was constructed in New York (USA) an era when American cities such as Chicago and New York competed to have the highest skyscrapers. To make way for the new skyscraper the old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Fifth Avemue was demolished. Demolition started in March 1930 and the construction of the new building was completed in fourteen months, on May 14th, 1931. With a 102 stories it was the tallest building in the world for forty years. Only when  the first tower of the World Trade Centre was completed in 1972 was it deposed as the highest building.

The architects, Shreve, Lamb and Harmon Associates, were given the brief of creating the tallest building in the world. To achieve this they decided to use a steel frame as the basic construction technique. The builders, Starrett Brothers and Eken Incorporated were skilled in using this construction method. Due to its size it originally had 64 elevators to aid the distribution of people up and down the building. When completed, the buildings overall height was 1472 feet (448 metres). This included the antenna at the top of the building. The original idea was that the antenna would be used to dock airships. However, this was dropped when it was realised that people were unlikely to enjoy disembarking an airship, that was tethered to the building, at the height of over a thousand feet. The building cost over forty million dollars and this was in a time of economic depression. Some referred to the building as the building that should never had been. One reason for the rapid completion was that the owners wanted rent from the spaces available as soon as possible.