The Empire State Building

How tall it is

The roof is at 381 m (1250 ft); with the broadcast antenna the figure is 443 m (1,454 ft), and the two get mixed up constantly. Height lists use the first, because an antenna bolted on by a broadcaster is not architecture. The building has 102 floors, and in 1931 it was the first anywhere past 100 stories.

It held the world record for about 40 years, until the World Trade Center's north tower passed it in 1970. No other building has held the title that long. In its own city it is now third.

Where it is

Yes, it is in Manhattan: 350 Fifth Avenue, between 33rd and 34th Streets, two blocks east of 34th Street–Herald Square. The site held the original Waldorf-Astoria hotel, pulled down in 1929.

Built in 13 months

Steel went up on 17 March 1930 and the building opened on 1 May 1931: about 13 months for 102 floors, roughly four and a half floors a week, never repeated at that height. Shreve, Lamb and Harmon drew a plain shaft with setbacks rather than anything that needed inventing on site, and the steel came pre-cut from Pittsburgh mills.

The race was with the Chrysler Building, which won the first round by assembling a 56 m spire in secret inside its own crown and raising it through the roof in 1929. The Empire State's design went through 15 revisions to beat it.

Then the Depression arrived. The offices stayed largely empty for years and New Yorkers called it the Empty State Building; observatory tickets earned more than the rent for most of the 1930s.

The two observatories

The 86th floor deck is the open-air one, at 320 m, with a walkway around the tower and the view most people picture. On a clear day the range is about 80 miles, into New Jersey and Connecticut.

The 102nd floor observatory is 16 floors higher, at 381 m, enclosed behind glass rebuilt in 2019. It is a small round room, so the trade is the extra height and the weather staying outside. An exhibit floor on the 80th opened the same year, and the three take in around four million visitors a year.

Tickets

Tickets are timed and sold by tier. The 86th floor alone is the cheapest adult entry, in the mid-forties of dollars; adding the 102nd floor roughly doubles it, and an express pass, a sunrise slot and an AM/PM ticket cost more again. Children and seniors pay less, no tier is free, and booking online is cheaper than the walk-up window. Prices are on the official ticket page.

What the building is used for

It is an office building, and always has been. Around 1,000 businesses rent space across its 208,000 square meters, and television and FM radio stations transmit from the mast. The observatories are the public part, along with the Art Deco lobby and its aluminum relief of the tower.

Art Deco, and the setbacks

Yes, it is Art Deco, and the style's largest surviving example: stepped massing, limestone piers with aluminum spandrels, chevrons at the crown. The setbacks are not decoration. New York's 1916 zoning resolution forced tall buildings to step back from the street line so daylight reached the sidewalk, and the wedding-cake profile of every tower of that decade comes from it. The Art Deco page covers that rule.

The mast at the top was sold as an airship mooring. Dirigibles were to tie up at 381 m and let passengers off onto the 102nd floor. Two attempts in 1931 showed the updrafts made holding a ship steady impossible, and the structure became the antenna's base instead.

On the foggy morning of 28 July 1945 a US Army B-25 Mitchell lost its bearings over Manhattan and flew into the north face at the 79th floor. Fourteen people died. The frame held, and offices reopened on Monday.

Climbers, the Run-Up and the couples

The Empire State Building Run-Up is the stair race, held most years since 1978: 1,576 steps from the lobby to the 86th floor deck, best times under ten minutes.

Climbers in the other sense run through the building's history. BASE jumpers have leapt from the 86th floor and a few people have free-climbed the facade; all of it is illegal, arrests follow, and the building answered by restricting roof access and fencing the decks.

The couples are a separate tradition. Every Valentine's Day a few pairs are chosen to marry on the 80th floor, which gets them free observatory admission on 14 February for life.

The lights, and the films

The tower lighting dates to 1932. Since the LED system arrived in 2012 the mast can show 16 million colors: green for St Patrick's Day, blue and orange when the Mets win, pink for breast cancer awareness. During spring and fall migration the lights go off on foggy nights so flocks are not drawn into the glass.

It has appeared in more than 250 films and shows. King Kong put him on the mast in 1933, two years after the building opened. Sleepless in Seattle sent its characters to the 86th floor in 1993 because An Affair to Remember had done it in 1957.

The record by year shows how long its reign lasted against the others, and the New York page puts it among the towers the city has built since.