The Empire State Building
The name ‘Empire State Building’ itself has some attraction or grapping power which makes everyone to know about the building and when we go on to this it’s very amazing to hear the facts of this building and its history. The Empire State Building is a great architectural excellence of the New York City. The New York City proudly illuminates the Empire State Building as a lighting moment from 1930, after the completion of Empire state building. The building, while construction had large competition between Walter Chrysler, of the Chrysler corporate and John Raskob, creator of general motors.
Finally the Empire State Building emerged as the tallest building among these and grabbed the record of being larger skyscraper in the world. “The nearest thing to heaven we have in New York” – Deborah Herr. On a clear day one can have possibility to see up to 80 miles in any direction from observatory floor of Empire state building, the name of the building is said to be arrived from the nick name of New York which is “Empire State” and hence called Empire State Building. The art deco skyscraper was owned by W and H properties.
The art deco skyscraper is named as one of seven modern wonders of the world by American Societies of Civil engineers. According to AIA, the Empire State Building ranked 1st in the list of America’s favorite architect in the year 2007. The building grabbed the record of being tallest building in the world for fourty years from 1931-1972. The New York City proudly highlights the building as the second tallest skyscraper in America and 9th tallest in the world. The wonder is the freestanding structure in America occupying fourth tallest place and 12th tallest in the world.
The great Empire State Building was designed by Gregory Johnson and his firm named Shreve, lamb and Harmon. The interesting thing is that building drawing was completed in just within 14 days. The project was financed primarily by John. J. Raskob and Pierse. S. Dupont. Empire State Building is too attractive so that it was captured in 90 movies and remained as popular tourist attraction of New York City. The great building was completed within a period of 1 year and 45 days i. e. it can be said that the great wonder took 7 million hours only to attain its form.
The work on the building was done around the clock (24 hours a day). The project commenced on Jan 22nd, 1930 and the work of mason (stone work) was completed on May 1st, 1931 which is ahead of schedule. The opening of the building was remember able that President Herbert Hoover just made a touch on the button in Washington for the purpose of opening the building by glowing empire building’s lights. Even before the total construction of Empire State Building there is speculations about its importance. The Chrysler building in New York City, at 319 m (1046 ft.
) briefly replaces both the Eiffel Tower and the Woolworth Building as the world’s tallest structure, although it will soon be overshadowed by the nearby Empire State Building. Cost and height The cost of the Empire State Building including the land is $40,948,000 and the cost of the building alone is $ 24,000,000. The magnificent skyscraper has 102 floors and 6500 windows, the height being 1,454 feet,60,000 tones of steel and 10 million bricks were used to built , such a wonderful building were located at 5th Avenue extends to 34th street. The project involved 3,400 workers; most of them are immigrants from Europe.
Even though Empire State Building was built in great depression with a small attempt to provide jobs for the people of America but its main aim of construction is that to build a tallest building in the world. Empire State Building regained the status of the New York’s tallest building after the 9/11 attack on The World Trade Center. Observation desk The observation deck of the Empire State Building has became a worlds popular one, had been visited by nearly 110 million peoples in the world. There are two observation decks at this building one is at 86th floor and other one at 102nd floor. When we look at the 86th floor, it is
The 86th floor of the Empire State Building is observatory floor; visitors can have a look at the Chrysler building, Harlem River and the other beautiful scenes of the New York City. The 86th floor is 1,050 feet high above the ground. The Empire State Building was the one built with diverse range of colors and designs which highlighted the New York City. The interiors were such that no other building could have the marvelous look. Observation deck of 102nd floor The 102nd floor observatory is a small deck when compared to 86th floor. This was originally a landing plat form with a dirigible gang plank.
The clear check on the passengers travelling from 86th floor to 102nd through elevators will be done. The 102nd floor deck is closed in 1999, but was reopened in November 2005; this deck may be shut down during busy traffic times. A worst Crash on Empire state building: Every good history will have one worst flash back, like wise on Saturday, July 1945 during the end of II world war an Army Air corps bomber plane crashed into the north side of the 79th and 80th floor of the building, which resulted in the death of 14 people. It can be said that “A Good luck in spite of bad incident” is that the structure of the building got damaged slightly,
Due to such a worst incident the name of the Empire State Building got entry into the Guinnes world record as the elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a plunge (immerse completely) of 75 stories inside elevator. A plane crashing into The Empire State Building on but the damage was very marginal due to the sound construction of the building. Death of workers & suicides During the construction of the building 5 of the workers were died, the first suicide was occurred even before the completion of the building, the recent suicide was committed by a lawyer from 69th floor during 2007, altogether around 30 people were committed suicide.
Comparison between Empire State Building and others Building: Chicago spire It is expected to exceed the height of Empire State Building only upon its completion, but due to financial problem construction has been stopped. World Trade Organization The Empire State Building was shadowed by the twin towers of the WTO when it was completed in 1972, which does not exceed for a long time, on Sep 11, 2001 an attack resulted in the collapse of world trade organization. Although there is some controversy that the freedom tower, however under construction on the WTO site which is to be the tallest building in the world at the time of completion.
But when we compare the time span of this two building the Empire State Building took only 1year and 45 days but whereas this freedom tower is expected to take a time period of 5 years. Nazca or Nasca lines They are group of large line drawing and figures that appear from a distance, to be etched into the earth’s surface on the arid Pampa Colorado north west of the city of Nazca in southern Peru. The Empire State Building was built in 1931 and is 1250 feet tall, comparison the Nazca line is 1250 feet long.
Pinnacle Height The John Hancock Center’s pinnacle height is 8. 5 meters (28 feet) taller than the pinnacle height of Empire State Building. Finally the Empire State Building is currently is the fourth tallest free structure building in Americas, the buildings which are a step above this are CN tower, the Sears Tower and John Hancock Center. When we have comparison of Empire State Building with Chrysler Building and 40 Wall Street the day after the completion, Empire State Building surpassed both of those two.
The interesting thing is that still they are under construction. Conclusion Last but not the least Empire State Building has brought New York a fame from the world. Even though many buildings has surpassed the Empire State Building but it resulted as the first building to exceed 100 floors. The building is greater and luckiest one in the world that is because even though there was a crash on it remains as unbeaten by the world. The 75year old building consists of 22 miles of telephone wires and elevator cable to stretch from Manhattan to Baltimore.
Such as huge building has been completed within 145 days is an exciting, everyone who comes to know the history of the Empire State Building will have a desire to look at the building with in their life time. Bibliography: 1. Bryan H. Bunch, Alexander Hellemans, The history of science and technology, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004. 2. Neil E. Schlecht, Rich Beattie, Brian Silverman, Frommer’s New York State, John Wiley and Sons, 2005. 3. Bryan H. Bunch, Alexander Hellemans, The History Of Science And Technology, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004.
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