The Empire State Building: The History of New York City’s Most

Iconic Landmark
By Charles River Editors

Amar Raavi’s picture of the Empire State Building

 About Charles River Editors

Charles River Editors provides superior editing and original writing services
across the digital publishing industry, with the expertise to create digital
content for publishers across a vast range of subject matter. In addition to
providing original digital content for third party publishers, we also republish
civilization’s greatest literary works, bringing them to new generations of
readers via ebooks.

Sign up here to receive updates about free books as we publish them, and visit
Our Kindle Author Page to browse today’s free promotions and our most
recently published Kindle titles.
 Introduction

Eric Kilby’s picture of the Empire State Building

The Empire State Building
“I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's
skyline. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York
and the will of man made visible... Let them come to New York, stand on the
shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window -
no, I don't feel how small I am - but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I
would like to throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these
buildings with my body.” – Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
 Of all the great cities in the world, few personify their country like New
York City. As America’s largest city and best known immigration gateway into
the country, the Big Apple represents the beauty, diversity and sheer strength
of the United States, a global financial center that has enticed people chasing
the “American Dream” for centuries. Given that history, it’s fitting that the
Empire State Building is the city’s most famous building, a soaring skyscraper
that has been one of the tallest buildings in the world for nearly a century and
the most recognizable landmark in New York.
The Empire State Building was constructed using the Art Deco style, which
was trendy during the era and had been used for other skyscrapers like the
Chrysler Building, but that’s where the comparisons end, because the Empire
State Building was unprecedented in almost every aspect at the time of its
creation. With a race for dizzying heights underway, ground was broken on the
Empire State Building on St. Patrick’s Day 1930, and the ceremony marking
its completion would come just a little more than a year later. Employing
thousands of workers and somehow managing only to lose 5, the gargantuan
building soared to nearly 1500 feet tall before topping out.
Ironically, it took awhile for the Empire State Building to attract businesses,
in large measure due to the fact it was built at the height of the Great
Depression, but before long it became synonymous with New York City itself.
The building has generated notorious headlines, such as when a B-25 bomber
crashed into the building in 1945, and it has been featured in too many movies
to count, including its most famous role in King Kong (1933) just a few years
after its completion. Indeed, the Empire State Building continues to be not just
an instantly identifiable landmark in New York City but also a crucially
valuable one that is still visited and used by thousands of people a day.
The Empire State Building: The History of New York City’s Most Iconic
Landmark chronicles the construction and history of the Big Apple’s most
famous building. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events,
you will learn about the Empire State Building like never before, in no time at
all.
The Empire State Building: The History of New York City’s Most Iconic
Landmark
About Charles River Editors
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Empire State Building Is It
Chapter 2: A Much More Massive Structure
Chapter 3: A Million Dollar Payoff
Chapter 4: They Had to Go Down
Chapter 5: Dozens of Different Trades
Chapter 6: The City Thrilled
Chapter 7: Smashed Records
Bibliography
 Chapter 1: The Empire State Building Is It

The building under construction

“In New York City's history, as far as construction, the Empire State
Building is it. More than all the other great projects -- the Brooklyn Bridge,
the aqueducts, the water tunnels, the other skyscrapers -- the Empire State
Building represents New York City to America, and America to the world. …
this whole transition, the mafia and the gangs becoming ascendant, and
switching to an Italian and Jewish thing from an Irish thing. The Irish have
kind of made it by this point: They've got the mayor, the governor, the police
department and the fire department. They're barely into law yet, but they're
moving up, moving on. … In addition, there's the involvement of Al Smith
and the whole history of Tammany and what it symbolized to Smith…much of
what today we would consider corruption was accepted business practice then.
For instance, at that time if you wanted to break a slab of sidewalk, you'd give
a kickback to the building department.” – Thomas Kelly, author of Empire
Rising
For all its unique attributes, the Empire State Building, built in 1931 and for
decades the tallest building in the world, is not the only building in the world
by that name. Indeed, it is not the only building so named in Manhattan. This
often causes confusion, as historian John Tauranac noted when relaying a story
about the other building: “A New York Sun reporter stumbled upon the
building in 1932, and described it as a rather drab, gray stone structure of nine
stories, extending some distance east on Bleecker Street. Its chief occupants
were two firms of pants manufacturers, a window-cleaning company, and the
Millinery Workers Union. A candy and cigar store occupied the ground-floor
corner. Why the Broadway building was called the Empire State when it was
built in 1897 is a mystery— perhaps the builder simply wanted to celebrate the
state the building was in— but the name was carved in stone above the
doorway until the building was ‘improved.’ The name is now obliterated by a
piece of greenish material.”
Obviously, that building was never destined for the greatness that crowned
its namesake, but it’s just one of the many surprises related to the landmark
skyscraper. In fact, when the news of the proposed building splashed across
the New York Times like bright red paint, people were shocked by the headline:
“SMITH TO HELP BUILD HIGHEST SKYSCRAPER: Ex-Governor Heads
Group That Will Put 80-Story Office Building on Waldorf Site.” Al Smith had
been known for years as a politician, not a businessman, but he also had a
powerful reputation as someone who could get a job done, often by any means
necessary. With surprising condor, he admitted in 1919, “I may be a little bit
cold-blooded in my way of looking at things, but I cannot help that. That
comes to me from practical experience. If the Hearst newspapers were the text
book for the children in our schools they would have to spell out of its every
line that…no man has enough of real Christian charity to do the right thing;
that no man who ever held public office, had enough of respect and regard for
his mother and his wife and his children and his friends to be right in office.”
 Al Smith
The other man involved in the deal was John J. Raskob, who had a strong
business background but knew nothing about real estate. The only thing he
knew was that he wanted to build the tallest building in the world, one
significantly taller than that recently undertaken by the Chrysler Company, his
former employers. He and Smith had been united by a common hatred of
Prohibition, as well as their willingness to skirt the law. Raskob once spoke of
“the attitude of many successful men who have come up from the ranks, men
whom I have known for years, men who drink now and who always have
drunk…. These men, many of whom at one time wore overalls— and in many
cases they were more appropriate than the plus fours or dinner coats that they
wear now— set themselves as arbiters of the poor man’s actions, and with
champagne glasses in their hands say ‘Oh, we must vote for prohibition; it is
good for the fellows in the shop.’ It is all hogwash. I have never seen any
workman the worse for a glass or two of beer, while now that he cannot get it
he is discontented. … The spirit underlying the framing of the Constitution
was one of tolerance and not of prohibition. The majority in this country have
no more right to bind the minority to abstinence from wines, beer or even
spirits than they have to curtail their right to freedom of religious worship. The
menace of prohibitory laws is the spirit of intolerance underlying their
adoption, and this is bound to result in rebellion…” In a similar vein, one
reporter wrote of New York’s former governor, “Smith belongs to that section
of humanity which is understandable to the Latin mind, that section which
treats life as something to be enjoyed and used sanely and openly and not to be
perverted by moral and physical restriction of every kind in the feverish
pursuit of material gain. ‘Smith is no hypocrite’ is the usual classification here
of the Democratic nominee, and being ‘no hypocrite’ he is reckoned here as
more recommendable than being even the greatest of business organizers.”
 Raskob
Another thing that the two men had in common was their staunch Irish
Catholic backgrounds, and the prejudice each had suffered because of it.
Though significantly wealthier than Smith, Raskob saw in him a man he could
support personally and politically, so when Smith decided to run for president
in 1928, Raskob abandoned the Republican Party to which he had always
belonged and became Smith’s campaign manager, as well as the chairman of
the Democratic National Convention. He announced, “Alfred E. Smith as
President would give the country a constructive business administration.
Business, big or little, has nothing to fear from Governor Smith.” So powerful
were Raskob’s remarks that some credited him with driving up ever-rising
stock prices, but his company, General Motors, did not feel he could
adequately serve two masters and insisted that he resign if he was going to run
the campaign. Proving just how committed he was to Smith, he gave up his
position with GM.
Still, Raskob was first and always a businessman, and he approached politics
that way. As he put it, “In both cases you have to sell something. It is up to us
to sell the Democratic Party to the people of the country. Our platform is what
we have to offer. Now, as I look at it, about half of our entire population is
already sold. They have either bought our line or our competitor’s, so no
matter what we can do we cannot affect their vote. The other half are
prospects. When you have a prospect and you feel convinced that you have the
goods, the only thing to do is to send your salesman after it. On account of his
honesty, his past record, his absolute sincerity, and his belief in what he is
selling, I think we have a pretty good salesman in Governor Smith.”
While this may be true, Smith’s political defeats ultimately left both men
unemployed, but it was during this time, according to at least one source,
when Raskob told the concerned Smith, “Don’t worry, Al, I’m going to build a
new skyscraper— biggest in the world— and you’re going to be president of
the company.”
Regardless of whether that’s how it occurred, the plan brokered for the
Empire State Building was the culmination of the way deals were done in the
1920s, as Raskob had the money and Smith had both the political connections
and insights. They were also fortunate to find a group of architects that shared
their practical vision of both the city’s and the building’s future; Shreve, Lamb
and Harmon was well established, having taken over the famous Carrère and
Hastings firm that had built many famous hotels during the latter part of the
19th century, but it was also a thoroughly modern operation that had a vision
for the present and future. William Lamb explained, “An interesting
development in the planning of present day office buildings is the change in
the conception that the architect has of his work. The day that he could sit
before his drawing board and make pretty sketches of decidedly uneconomic
monuments to himself has gone. His scorn of things ‘practical’ has been
replaced by an intense earnestness to make practical necessities that armature
upon which he moulds the form of his idea. Instead of being the intolerant
aesthete, he is one of a group of experts upon whom he depends for the
success of his work, for the modern large building with its complicated
machinery is beyond the capacity of any one man to master, and yet he must,
in order to control the disposition and arrangement of this machine, have a
fairly accurate general knowledge of what it is all about. Added to this he must
know how to plan his building so that it will ‘work’ economically and produce
the revenue for which his clients have made their investment.”

Lamb
R. H. Shreve later added that “our plan is to find the best available brains in
the real estate field, in various branches of engineering, in architecture,
building and labor. Then we will put all our ideas on the table. The best of the
ideas we develop in this fashion are the ones we will use.”
 Chapter 2: A Much More Massive Structure
“It's not that much taller than the Chrysler building or 40 Wall Street. But the
Empire State Building is a much more massive structure. The Chrysler
Building has about 18,000 or 20,000 tons of structural steel; the Empire State
Building has 65,000. So it's three times as big, even though it's only about 15
stories higher. The Empire State Building was also the punctuation point to
the Roaring '20s. Those other buildings went up when things were still going
crazy. Then they demolished the Waldorf-Astoria hotel to build the Empire
State Building. The destruction of that building started the day the stock
market crashed. It's a symbol of ambition, drive and human endeavor. It's
going up and the city is falling into depression, as is the county around it.” –
Thomas Kelly, author of Empire Rising

The Chrysler Building in 1932

 40 Wall Street in the 1930s
In 1929, Shreve, Lamb and Harmon presented Smith and company with a
contract that guaranteed, among other things, “statements previously made to
you as to the nature of our services as architects and the terms of our
employment in connection with your proposed…building.” It went on to state
the times at which their fees would be paid, and what those fees would buy:
“Cooperation with engineers engaged by (us) (Owner) for the design of the
structural steel, heating and ventilating, plumbing and electric work, and
elevators, and the incorporation in the structural plans and specifications of
any features necessary to provide for mechanical equipment…Cooperation
with the Builder in preparing the schedule for the execution of the work and in
the award of such subcontracts as may be let. … ‘Supervision as necessary to
assure that the work is being executed generally in accordance with the plans
and specifications. This supervision will mean continuous supervision or
detailed inspection of materials or executed work.’”
One of the biggest challenges facing the men was finding a piece of land in
Manhattan that was large enough for their new building. By 1930, New York
City was already a crowded metropolis, so this was a critical part of the
process. Shreve explained, “The first actual step in the building of a
skyscraper is the selection of the site. The situations of the building, and the
cost of the land are, of course, vitally important in the paramount
consideration of whether the building is going to pay for itself and earn money
on the investment or not. It is therefore a prime requisite that the design shall
distribute the cost of the land over the largest practical area of usable floor
surface set up in accordance with building cost, building laws and profitable
use—all influences which must receive our consideration. To set up properly
an income producing building, the control of its design and construction
should be in the hands of a board on which sit owner, banker, builder,
architect, engineers and real estate men. The record of their decisions finds
place in plans, specifications and contracts, financial transactions and leases,
and the outcome of their work, if it’s to be successful, mush have been
foreseen far in advance of its realization.”
The Empire State Building was ambitiously designed, and the selection of
the site was no less ambition. As real estate developer Irwin Chanin observed
that year, “It is seldom, except when some old and large holding comes onto
the market, that an operation involving an entire block of property is at all
possible. This is due mainly to the fact that the last property owner always
holds out for the ultimate dollar, for which he cannot be blamed under the
present system— or he flatly refuses to be drawn into negotiation of any
kind.” Fortunately, Prohibition had taken its toll on many of the great hotels
of the time, which often depended more on their bar and restaurant profits than
what they made from renting rooms. Thus, the original Waldorf-Astoria,
located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, went under and was torn
down in May 1929.
 The Waldorf-Astoria building on the site in the early 20th century
That same year, a plan began to put a 50 story office building in its place, but
the plan ran out of money and was taken over by Smith, who announced on
August 29, 1929 that he was now the head of Raskob & Co. and that it would
build an 80 story office building in its place. As the former governor of the
Empire State, he also gave the new building its name. Enthusiastic about the
site, Smith called it the “great apex of office occupancy, as a structure so high
that its sheer personality brings an influx of office population to a district that
was changing to an office status…Thirty-Fourth Street is the midway
thoroughfare of the region between Madison Square and Forty-Second Street.
As the Waldorf-Astoria emphasized a great trade and hotel center, so, now,
under the changed condition, does the Empire State emphasize the growing
prestige of the region along office lines.”
At the time, not everyone was impressed or optimistic. Fortune Magazine
reported that Smith and his group had “chosen a lot where no large office
building had ever grown before, a section which the Forty-second Street
development and the general march northward had overlooked. If they were
right they might succeed in domesticating the migratory real estate operators
of Manhattan within the present uptown frontiers. They might fix the center of
the metropolis.”
While Smith was most interested in the building’s location, Raskob was
focused on its height, as he remained determined to build something taller than
General Motor’s famous Chrysler Building, then 77 stories tall but about to
experience a sudden growth spurt. According to architect Kenneth M.
Murchison, when Walter Chrysler heard about Raskob’s new project, he
ordered his architect to add to the height of his own building. Murchison
explained that William Van Alen “examined his plans. Right in the center of
the tower he found a fire tower which, to the untutored mind, is nothing more
or less than a large hole in a building. And there he went secretly to work.
He… and [his engineer] evolved a modernistic flagpole of latticed steel….
They named the thing a ‘vertix,’ because the name hadn’t been used before,
and they had it made in three pieces. They hoisted it up in the fire tower and
there riveted it together.”
Not to be outdone, Raskob went back to his architects and demanded that
they come up with a taller building. As Lamb later recalled, “It was a
coincidence, [everyone consulted] arrived at a limit of 80 stories.” While
another five “penthouse” levels could be added, that was it. Of course, there
was also the observation deck on the roof, which could be considered a 86th
floor, but even without that, Raskob predicted that his building would still be
several feet taller than Chrysler’s. However, that was not much in his eyes, and
Hamilton Weber, the building’s first rental manager, was also concerned: “We
thought we would be the tallest at 80 stories. Then the Chrysler went higher,
so we lifted the Empire State to 85 stories, but only four feet taller than the
Chrysler. Raskob was worried that Walter Chrysler would pull a trick - like
hiding a rod in the spire and then sticking it up at the last minute.”
Even as they were working on figuring out the building’s height, Raskob and
Co. had to consider the building’s design. Those in charge were attracted to the
popular modern look of the era, Art Deco, which had sprouted up in France in
the preceding decades and had become popular across the West. J. Monroe
Hewlett, chairman of the American Institute of Architect’s Committee on
Allied Arts, incorrectly predicted that “the present vogue for new character of
detail and ornament will wax and wane without leaving any permanent and
valuable contribution to our freedom in design. Suggestions of natural form
where used are not so much conventionalized as brutalized. Oddity seems to
be a distinct aim. The results are highly manneristic. Mannerisms are the
easiest things to copy, and we shall, therefore, probably be subjected to a
severe and country-wide epidemic of this particular disorder. It is, however,
essentially a skin disease. We may hope that it will leave the vitals unimpaired,
and that its brevity will equal its violence.”
In many ways, the tall, slim lines of 1930s skyscrapers mimicked the lines
preferred by fashion designers of the era, as noted by architect Emery Roth,
who said “our ideal of beauty in 1900 was Anna Held and Lillian Russell of
large curves, and the architects went for curved lines, while the ‘modernistic’
is going in for long straight lines. Our ideal now is for the long and slim, and
our architecture follows our taste in ladies.”
Ultimately, the design for the Empire State Building began like that of so
many other great designs: with a pencil. However, it was completely different
in that the pencil wasn’t just used for drawing but for inspiration. Depending
on who is telling the story, during one of their meetings, either Lamb or
Raskob held up a sharpened pencil and, pointing to its pinnacle and its topped
straightness, exclaimed that the building should look like it. With that
established, Raskob insisted that the pencil shaped building would open on
May 1, 1930, in well under two years. He was bold enough to inform the
governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt, to mark that date on his
calendar, and with that, Shreve, Lamb and Harmon went to work.
 Chapter 3: A Million Dollar Payoff
“Two building code changes made the Empire State Building possible. One
was elevator speed, and the other was steel thickness. The technology in steel
had advanced so much by the 1920s that you could use much thinner, lighter
steel, which was much stronger than the old stuff. If you're going up 102
stories, it's something you want. If you have people going up so high, how can
you do so without faster elevators. The changes were mysteriously vetoed
twice by Mayor Walker, and then, after the materials were already ordered, he
reversed himself. I find it hard to believe, given what went on at the time, that
there wasn't a significant payment to somebody. I imagine a scene at the
beginning of the book with a million dollar payoff.” – Thomas Kelly, author of
Empire Rising
Once the architects were well on their way to designing the building, Smith
next had to find someone willing to actually build it. He approached a number
of companies, including Starrett Construction Company, and according to one
author who wrote in 1939 about Starrett’s work on the Empire State Building,
“Even in this greatest of skyscrapers, Starrett gives the bulk of the record to
landing the contract, quarrels with Al Smith over commissions, labor disputes
that broke out on other contracts his firm had at the time in Cincinnati and
Newark. Giants of the business world walk through the pages but they do not
speak. They babble only of prices, jobs, mergers, deals. If one judged by this
book, one would be forced to believe that big business me n in America were
absorbed in the trivia of commercialism while all un-known to themselves
they were developing startlingly fresh materials and forms, setting the mould
of a new civilization.”
Although he was not a tactful man, Paul Starrett impressed Smith with his
knowledge and willingness to work a deal. For instance, Starrett was one of
the few people willing to look his committee in the eye and say, “Gentlemen,
this building of yours is going to present unusual problems. Ordinary building
equipment won’t be worth a damn on it. We’ll buy new stuff, fitted for the job,
and at the end sell it and credit you with the difference. That’s what we do on
every big job. It costs less than renting secondhand stuff, and it’s more
efficient.”
 The only problem was that Starrett wanted $600,000 to do the job,
significantly more than Smith planned to pay. They were eventually able to
strike a deal after Smith offered $500,000 to complete the contract. To that
offer, Starrett replied, “Well, Governor, I feel pretty sure that in six hundred
thousand dollars you are only paying me a fair fee, but I suppose as a good
businessman you have to pare something off. I’ll tell you what I will do. If you
will make some minor changes in the contract, allow us to carry our own
liability insurance, and provide the money as we require it, I’ll say yes.”
The final plans for the Empire State building were being drawn up, but
Raskob remained concerned that the Chrysler Building might yet surpass it in
height, so to prevent this, Smith came up with a new and (at the time) unique
idea: the Empire State Building would be topped with a 158 foot tall spire that
would serve as a dirigible mast. When incredulous reporters questioned him
about this, Smith assured them it was “on the level, all right. No kidding.
We’re working on the thing now. One set of engineers here in New York is
trying to dope out a practical, workable arrangement and the Government
people in Washington are figuring on some safe way of mooring airships to
this mast.”
 David Corby’s picture of the spire
In 1930, many felt that Smith’s dream was not really plausible, and among
those who expressed concern was Dr. Hugo Eckener, then the commander of
the Graf Zeppelin and the CEO of the Zeppelin Company in Germany. He
explained, “The difficulties of mooring a great airship to a mast over New
York City would be very great. The violent air currents up and down caused
by your high buildings would, I think, make such a project almost impossible
at this time. … I have always been very careful. There would have to be many,
many experiments.” Over time, Smith came to share his concerns while still
remaining optimistic: “You can hitch one of those babies all right, but they
won’t stand hitched like a horse. If there’s a wind blowing — and there
always is up here where we are — the dirigible would be whirled around like a
top, and that wouldn’t be so good. Elsewhere when the airships are moored to
masts they are weighted down at the stern, with enormous lead weights, so that
they will stand hitched even against a stiff wind. But I don’t believe they
would stand for that here. Half the population of Manhattan Island would get
the heeby-jeebies at the thought of forty or fifty tons of lead swinging over
their heads. But there must be some way to work the thing out, and if there is
our engineers will find it.”
As usual, no one was as cautious as the lawyers, who concluded a 55 page
report on the subject by determining that “on the whole…the courts will
probably hold that erection and use of the mast will be legal, but this opinion
is an enlightened guess and not a prediction made with assurance. The answer
is too speculative to be given positively.”
In the end, as anyone who’s seen the building knows, the spire was built and
did indeed make the Empire State Building the tallest building in the world,
but it never served as a docking station for zeppelin. In fact, there were only a
few attempts at the move. According to the New York Times, the first was
made in 1930 by a movie company, and the article on the incident read,
“Slowly and with its command on the alert lest the delicate fabric of its
envelope be staked on the sharp spires of the tall buildings in the Pennsylvania
zone, the semi rigid dirigible J-4, auxiliary of the Los Angeles of the
Lakehurst Naval Air Station, reconnoitered about the dirigible mooring mast at
3: 15 Tuesday, December 17th, while thousands watched from the streets
below…A stiff wind was blowing as the dirigible hovered with throttled
engines and approached the tower. In the cabin of the airship Lieutenant S. M.
Bailey, the commander, kept his hands on the controls and ballast releases in
case a gust threw him too close to the near-by buildings. Bailey… declined to
comment on the feasibility of attempting to tie up to the mast and added that
he was kept so busy at the controls while the ship oscillated in the treacherous
air currents over the city that he had little time to notice the details of the
mast.”
Josef Israels II, Smith’s publicist for the project, later claimed that the
biggest publicity stunt he had ever planned was when he “suggested and
participated in the exploitation and building of the mooring mast on top of the
Empire State Building, making it the highest building in the world. The
resulting publicity, with pictures of dirigibles moored to the mast, was printed
in every city in the world.”
 Unfortunately, this particular incident was much more than a publicity stunt
to the men involved. Margery Lewis later told the story of what her husband
went through that day: “Ellis once did a particularly hazardous job atop the
Empire State Building. There was actually no repair work on this job, it was
just a stunt for the edification of the public and newspaper photographers. The
plan was to moor a Goodyear blimp to the top of the Empire State Building.
… On the very pinnacle of that lofty tower Ellis stood there in the afternoon
sunlight, waiting for the blimp, which had been maneuvering about for an hour
or so, with its mooring line hanging down, swaying in the wind. Again and
again that blimp swept by the tower, each time coming closer in an attempt to
have my husband grasp that steel rope and moor it to the mast. Twice he
almost fell from his lofty perch. Then the blimp came closer and closer. You
couldn’t even see Ellis from the ground where I stood. Even the photographers
were nonplussed, for they had no higher structure from which to take their
‘shots’ of the scene. … That blimp was never moored to that tower. They
simply couldn’t do it. The wind was too strong. On the third try Ellis caught
the mooring rope and tried to bring the blimp in. But a sudden gust of wind
tore the blimp away and lifted Ellis two feet from his post. Frantic signaling
from the control room of the blimp told him of his danger— he let go, and
quite disappointed, came down from the tower.”

Finally, Irwin Clavan, who worked for Shreve and Lamb, had to concede
that “the as yet unsolved problems of mooring air ships to a fixed mast at such
a height made it desirable to postpone to a later date the final installation of the
landing gear.” At about the same time, Smith admitted that he and others had
“enjoyed the quips and jokes about the Empire State mooring mast, on the
same principle as the individual in high public office enjoys the slings and
arrows embodied in cartoons of him . It is all in a lifetime. The Empire State
Building was built to stand all kinds of wind pressure as well as hot air. We of
the management feel flattered to know that Empire State has attracted the
attention of the universe.”
The dirigible Columbia flying over the mast of the Empire State
Building
 Chapter 4: They Had to Go Down
“STARRETT, whose construction company was the general contractor on
the Empire State Building, once declared that building skyscrapers was the
nearest peacetime equivalent to war. His analogy was never more apt than
during the raising of America's most fabled structure. Not only was the Empire
State Building built in an astonishing 13 months, but it was done almost
entirely without overtime. Mr. Starrett knew that brilliance on the drawing
board is meaningless, that it is sweat, muscle and skill that transform idea into
fact. By the time the building started going up, the development frenzy of the
20's had gone bust. The Empire State was the only game in town, and that is
why Mr. Starrett was able to recruit the elite of the city's construction trades.
… But before the workers went up, they had to go down, because standing
staunchly in their way was the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. A few days
after the stock market crash of 1929, crews began the hard, nasty work of
demolishing the hotel, tearing it apart with sledgehammers and pry bars and
blowtorches. In the end, 16,000 truckloads of debris was hauled away, most of
it dumped into the sea off Sandy Hook, N.J. Once the hotel was a memory, the
men dug deeper, blasting into the Manhattan bedrock until, on St. Patrick's
Day 1930, the journey upward began.” – Thomas Kelly, author of Empire
Rising
In 1931, Lamb evaluated his work with the contractors in charge of the
construction of the Empire State Building and wrote, “In this spirit of
cooperation with experts, the builder and the engineer, the effort was made to
solve the problem of the design of the Empire State. The program was short - a
fixed budget, no space more than 28 feet from window to corridor, as many
stories of such space as possible, an exterior of limestone, and completion by
May 1, 1931, which meant a year and six months from the beginning of
sketches. The logic of the plan is very simple. A certain amount of space in
the center, arranged as compactly as possible, contains the vertical circulation,
toilets, shafts and corridors. Surrounding this is a perimeter of office space 28-
feet deep. The sizes of the floors diminish as the elevators decrease in number.
In essence there is a pyramid of non-rentable space surrounded by a greater
pyramid of rentable space, a principle modified of course by the practical
consideration of construction and elevator operation. The four groups of high-
rise elevators are placed in the center of the building with the low-rise groups
adjoining on the east and west sides so that as these drop off, the building
steps back from the long dimension of the property to approach the square
form of the shaft, with the result that instead of being a tower, set upon a series
of diminishing setbacks prescribed by the zoning law, the building becomes all
tower rising from the great five-story base. At this point, there entered the last
and perhaps the most important item in the owner's program - speed of
construction. Hardly a detail was issued without having been thoroughly
analyzed by the builders and their experts and adjusted and changed to meet
every foreseen delay. Choice of interior marbles was limited to those which
could be obtained in time to be fabricated and set.”
Lamb went on to add that it was only the modern manufacturing techniques
that made completing the building on time possible. “As far as possible hand
work was done away with, for in quantity production with thousands of pieces
of each material identical in shape and size, the delay would have been
disastrous. Windows, spandrels, steel mullions and stone, all fabricated in
various parts of the country, were designed so that they could be duplicated in
tremendous quantity and brought to the building and put together almost like
an automobile on the assembly line. The adaptation of the design to conditions
of use, construction and speed has been kept to the fore throughout the
development. Whatever "style" may result is a logical answer to the problems
set by the demands of this unprecedented program.”
On another occasion, Shreve observed, “The architect is still the leader in his
art, the coordinator of constructive forces, the master of his craft, but in the
field of such intense activity as surrounds the construction of…towering
commercial structures of our large cities…the architect has his role, but as part
of an organization, not as a despot. That this must be true is evident if one
studies the numerous questions which are presented in the course of the
development and construction of the large modern business building. These
problems must be dealt with through authority greater than the architect
possesses. The location of the plot to be built on, the use to be made of the
structure, the nature of the space enclosed, and the time at which completion
should permit occupancy, all affect the success of the project and should all be
determined by the owner with the cooperation of his rental, management and
operating staffs.”
 As mentioned earlier, the plot of land itself was crucial, and the first step in
building the Empire State Building was “un-building” (or tearing down) the
Waldorf Astoria. However, just like one does not clear a china teapot with
sandpaper, the great hotel, even if it had fallen on hard times, was not simply
be dynamited out of existence. Indeed, the owners were building another
Waldorf Astoria across town and hoped to take many of the features present in
the original with them. Furthermore, many people wanted a chance to steal a
small souvenir from what was being discarded, so the process was initially
rather slow. Starrett remembered, “A man in Keokuk, Iowa, wrote asking for
the iron railing fence on the Fifth Avenue side. A Connecticut woman wanted
another railing…( and) a man from Maine wanted a flagpole. Somebody in
Washington pleaded for stained-glass windows. Other people asked for
fireplaces, pieces of marble or brick, or lighting fixtures. One man and his
wife were made happy by getting the key for the room they had occupied,
many years before, on their honeymoon.”
 Pictures of the construction at ground level
Once the former hotel was cleared to its foundations, the workers began
digging until they reached the bedrock below. Then, on March 17, 1930,
which the predominantly Irish work teams observed as the feast of St. Patrick
and therefore a great day to start, the building began going up. Inspired by
their progress, Shreve commented that “one may well believe that with its
organized cooperation in the labor of men and the fabrication and placing of
materials , its precision of performance to match the timing of a trunk-line
railroad and connecting services, almost the powers of Aladdin’s genii were
harnessed for a building project . None of all the ancient world wonders in any
way matched the amazing assembly of skilled craft and fashioned materials
which with uncanny accuracy find their places in the daily wrought miracle of
a modern skyscraper.”
Anyone looking at the Empire State Building can see that it is a marvel of
architecture, construction, and business, but for those working on it, it was
more a marvel of time and materials management. Never before or since has
such a major building project kept so perfectly to its schedule. While Starrett
Brothers & Eken no doubt deserve much of the praise for the way in which the
project’s daily operations were run, Starrett himself praised Lamb’s work:
“Never before in the history of building had there been…an architectural
design so magnificently adapted to speed in construction.” Shreve later
remarked, “When we were in full swing going up the main tower, things
clicked with such precision that once we erected fourteen and a half floors in
ten working days— steel, concrete, stone and all. We always thought of it as a
parade in which each marcher kept pace and the parade marched out of the top
of the building, still in perfect step. Sometimes we thought of it as a great
assembly line— only the assembly line did the moving; the finished product
stayed in place.” Andrew Eken also noted that the project “ran trucks the way
they run trains in and out of Grand Central. If a truck missed its place in the
line on Tuesday, it had to wait until Wednesday to get back in.”
Of course, it might be fair to attribute some of the credit to sheer luck. Given
that materials for the building came from all over the country, it’s remarkable
that plans were never held up by something as mundane as a serious storm or
power outage. For instance, a train derailment might have kept the steel
girders from arriving from Pennsylvania, while a snow storm could have
stopped the cement from arriving from Upstate New York. Given the political
unrest beginning to stir in Europe at the time, it is almost miraculous that
marble regularly arrived from Italy as scheduled.
 Chapter 5: Dozens of Different Trades
“From Day 1, the pace was dizzying. Dozens of different trades, from the
ironworkers who led the way into the Manhattan sky, to the concrete men and
brickies, to the tin knockers and stonemasons, electricians, plasterers and
elevator constructors, were employed on the project. Every day was
controlled mayhem. You started your day at 8 a.m., broke for lunch at noon,
and quit at 4:30 when the whistle blew. The racket was ear-splitting: the
barking of dozens of rivet guns, the diesel roar of derricks, the bellowing of
foremen and the pounding by hundreds of carpenters. There was no room for
error in the tight schedule of deliveries that the contractors had designed.
Materials came from all over America and beyond: granite from Midwestern
quarries, steel from Pennsylvania mills, marble from Italy. Much of it arrived
on the East Side docks, where it was loaded onto flatbeds and hauled across
town. Trucks drove directly into the belly of the building, and the material
they carried never hit the ground; it was snatched right off the truck beds and
hoisted immediately to the floors where it was needed. On each floor, small-
gauge rail was built to ferry material to the appropriate work site.” – Thomas
Kelly, author of Empire Rising
 Pictures of construction workers working on the Empire State Building
Although the Empire State Building’s design and construction went
unusually well, there were some inevitable conflicts, and Shreve discussed the
types of issues inherent in such a process: “The heavy black pencil, long hair
and a temperamental disposition might expect consideration in the study of the
‘design’, but even here the architect is beset with ‘influences’. The owner and
his practical advisers must test and pass upon the plan and its functioning;
finance dictates the fenestration; rent-roll rules the ‘parti’. The engineers, the
builder and the building department impose material limitations affecting color
and texture, while the zoning law and the budget cast their shadows over form
and mass - ancient domains of my Lord Architect, now jointly occupied by
him and his allies in the name of cooperation. … A building operation need
not and should not be a tug-of-war, suspicion is not preferable to mutual
confidence and respect; sincerity and honesty may be attributes of the builder
as well and not virtues deemed to be lodged only in the soul of the designer. It
is true that in the building industry as elsewhere that ‘the sceptre falls to the
hand that can hold it’. Recognition of this principle does not belittle the
architect or lessen his influence; on the contrary, it brings him into a correct
relation to those with whom he is working, places responsibility and authority
where they belong, and strengthens the position of each man in the work for
which he is responsible. Through such a relationship the architect should do
better work, inspire greater confidence and acquire greater prestige, not alone
in his own profession, but - and this would seem of greater importance - in the
building industry as a whole.”
Of course, no amount of materials would have been any good without the
men who worked day in and day out to build the skyscraper, and in this sense,
the timing of the Empire State Building’s construction was fortuitous. The fact
that there were always plenty of workers available for hire came about because
of the Great Depression, which ensured that able-bodied men were willing to
work and lined up for a chance at a job. By the time the first architectural
drawings for the building were completed in November 1929, the
economically devastating stock market crash had taken place and the United
States was in the earliest throes of the Depression. If anything, had Raskob and
Smith been able to see into the future and understand how long the crisis
would last, they might not have continued with the project, but as it turned out,
the Empire State Building, rising out of the scarred ground that once held the
fabulous Waldorf Astoria, became a symbol of a much hoped-for national
recovery.
For the next 16 months, the work proceeded on something of an ad hoc
basis. Plans trickled in for a few floors at a time, so as the foundation columns
were drying, the steel workers were busy planning the next stage. Months
would pass before the plans for the roof were completed. Shreve later
recalled, “There were days when the messenger reached Pittsburgh with
drawings only an hour before the steel mills started rolling the I beams we
would need a few days later. Steel had gone up thirty stories before plans
could be finished for some details of the ground floor. We had to keep ahead of
the workmen no matter what happened. We had enough close shaves to make
us all turn white.”
When the foundation was completed, Smith himself came to the site to lay
the cornerstone, containing within it a copper box holding “certain articles of
value indicating the trend of the time. If this building is ever demolished to
make way for a greater building the people of that day can read pretty
accurately the history of this day.” While the items themselves were actually
pretty trivial and mostly related to Smith and Company, the event itself was
important. Smith said, “Since the advent of the movie camera, the radio and
other means of communicating sound, the laying of a cornerstone of a public
building today becomes somewhat of a photographic gallery performance.”
Later, Smith would return to the site to “shoot” in the final rivet on the 102nd
floor and again mug for the cameras, this time saying, “I’m thinking of getting
me a stout leather belt and tying myself by a chain. I marvel at these
steelworkers— the way they move about almost as high as the sky with as
little fear apparently as we walk the streets.”
Smith was right to be in awe of his men, and he and the workers were all
fortunate that Starrett had a passion for safety, not only for his own men but
also for those walking below them. As the stories went up one after another,
each one was followed by not one but two catchall scaffolds. The first was
made of both wired mesh and wood and was set under the stone and brick
masons. Another, typically 15 stories below the first one, was made of rope
and wire mesh and hung between two strong supports. It was designed to catch
small items, particularly bolts and rivets. One of the foremen on the job
pointed to a bolt caught in the lower net and said, “That little chunk of iron is
worth about $ 10,000. If it had dropped to the street, instead of right here, and
if it had hit somebody, they— or their relatives—would have got the money.”
Naturally, the safety scaffolding was also designed to catch a falling worker,
but there is no record of that ever being necessary, as the men working on the
high steel shared a surefootedness that saved their lives and attracted crowds
from around the city. Each day, men would travel higher and higher into the
air as their worked progressed, often riding up merely by standing on beams
being lifted into place by giant cranes. This became a form of fashionable
entertainment for those walking below them, and traffic was often nearly
stopped by the dozens of passersby that stood breathlessly and looked up at
workers going about his business.
The men’s work also attracted the attention of a number of reporters who
often came to cover the progress of the construction. One writer for The New
Yorker reported, “Like little spiders they toiled, spinning a fabric of steel
against the sky. Crawling, climbing, swinging, swooping— weaving a web
that was to stretch farther heavenward than the ancient Tower of Babel, or than
all the older towers of the modern Babel.” Another reporter, C. G. Poore of
the New York Times, called the Empire State Building the best show in town,
while Harold Butcher, sent from across the pond to cover the great
construction project for the Daily Herald in London, considered them the stuff
of modern mythology. He described the workers as “in the flesh, outwardly
prosaic, incredibly nonchalant, crawling, climbing, walking, swinging,
swooping on gigantic steel frames. …hairy-chested huskies, strapping youths,
clean-limbed, and clear-eyed,”
Fittingly, a New York Times article from July 27, 1930 summed up the work
in a bit more detail, making clear just how grand the scope of the work was.
“More than 3,000 men are daily at work. Going through the build today one
encounter then on all floors. Among them, are 225 carpenters, 290
bricklayers, 384 brick laborers, 328 arch laborers, 107 derrick men. On the
structural steel 285 men are working, while 249 other men are installing the
elevators and 105 are ding electrical work. There are 192 plumbers, 194
heating and ventilating men, as well as many trade specialists, inspectors,
checkers, foremen, clerks and water boys. Even the dust on the planked
wooden floor where the trucks arrive requires men to settle it with watering
cans. So great is the concentration of work that many of the men do not even
descend to the street for their midday meals. A concessionaire runs restaurants
at the various levels of the building, obviating the long climb down and up
again, through the maze of moving equipment and working men. Each floor
has a miniature railway system, equipped with cars that carry materials from
the central work elevator shafts to the outposts of the floor where cement and
brick and metal are used. These cars run on tracks equipped with turntables so
that they can be shifted and shunted in any direction.”
Given the number of workers and the impressive pace maintained on the
project, it’s no surprise that the workers had to be on top of their game at all
times. As Thomas Kelly explained, “If you worked on the Empire State, you
hustled all day long, whether you were a skilled electrician or a water boy or a
rivet punk. If you could not handle the pace, there was a line of hungry men
that snaked around the block each day waiting for a shot, and the foremen
were happy to point them out. The operation was so tight that the steel often
arrived still warm from the forges. But the men also reveled in being the best,
the fastest. Every Monday, the various trades placed money into hats and then
spent the week racing one another skyward, competing to see which gang
could throw up the most steel, drive the most rivets, lay the most brick, pour
the most concrete. On Fridays, escorted by men with guns, the paymaster
made his way through the building, calling out the name of each man and
handing him a pay envelope filled with cash. The gang that won that week's
competition picked up a nice bonus from the hat money. But even without the
bonus, the pay was princely. Tradesmen earned almost $2 an hour, laborers $1
to $1.25. Subway workers, by contrast, earned about 36 cents an hour — $30
for an 84-hour week.”
The New York Times article continued, “Driven relentlessly by the necessity
for speed, the designers make these plans so that work can begin on the lower
part of the skyscraper before the specifications for higher sections have been
completed. A construction program was developed in the case of the Empire
State Building requiring a synchronization of infinitely varied activities
scarcely attempted before. The endless caravan of supply trucks held some
loads waiting to cross the river; others were struggling to reach Fifth Avenue
and Thirty-Fourth Street through New York’s clogged one-way traffic; and
still others were already there, unloading. High above the street great bundles
of steel at the ends of cobweb cables now swing toward the working platform
where metal members of the structure lie in orderly rows, waiting to be set in
place by the men at the top. Just below the topmost steel as it is set in place
are the riveters, securing the lower members in place. They climb to their
perches by ladders or along steel work.”
Indeed, of all the men working of the Empire State Building, there were
perhaps none as synchronized as the riveters. Working in well-oiled four men
teams, their speed and precision was key to keeping the iron skeleton of the
building moving up and up. When a new girder or column arrived in the floor
on which they were working, it had already been drilled with holes for the
rivets that would secure it to the existing structure. As soon as the crane had
lifted it into place, the men went to work with a grace that one author
compared to a trapeze artist, allowing them to drive in 500 rivets each day.
First, the heater would place 10 1⅛ -inch rivets in his onsite forge, and once
they turned red with heat, he would use three-foot tongs to pick one up and
toss it through the air to the catcher 50 to 75 feet away. He in turn would catch
the burning hot metal in a old tin can and, using another pair of tongs, place it
in the pre-drilled hole, taking time to first tap it on the metal to remove any
cinders. The third man, called the bucker-up, would then use his own set of
tongs to hold it in place while the gunman used a three foot long rivet gun to
drive it into place. By the time this was completed, another rivet was on its
way through the air.
The men accomplished all this while balancing on little more than the iron
bars they had put in place the day before. Thus, it is no wonder that the New
York Times said they “put on the best open-air show in town. They rode into
the air on top of a steel beam that they maneuvered into place as a crosspiece
by hanging to the cable rope and steering the beam with their feet, then
strolling on the thin edge of nothingness.” In the January 27 article, the
reporter wrote in wonder of their surroundings: “But just below the riveters are
the stairways, already rising through the frame. And lower down on many
levels are festoons of electric cables and steel pipes, ‘the veins and arteries
attaching to the steel skeleton.’ Flooring, exterior walls and windows, elevator
shafts, ornamental stonework and all the finishing trades follow in such a
rapidly moving but orderly parade…that the plaster may appear in the lower
floors before the roof has been made tight.”
 Pictures of the building under construction
For their part, the men did not consider what they did to be particularly
frightening. In fact, one of them once told a reporter, “It isn’t really as
dangerous as it looks. It’s safer up here than it is down below.” Joe Carbonell,
who worked as a water boy on the site when he was 16, recalled, “At first I
was a little shaky, a little scared, but the steel workers--those Mohawks--they
were terrific. They sort of adopted me. They taught me how to walk the steel
and not to look down. Look straight across the beam. Keep that as your guide.
Don't look down. And after a while, it was fine.”
Moreover, the workers found various ways to keep themselves entertained.
As Thomas Kelly noted, “It wasn't all toil and grind. On Fridays, as the week
ended, the workers selected a floor, and when the bosses were gone they'd
meet and turn the place into a casino in the sky. The carpenters slapped
together gaming tables. Barrels of beer were rolled in on the small-gauge rail
that snaked through each floor. The men gambled and partied as they gazed
down on their receding city.
When the exterior was completed, the interior work began, and by the time it
was finished, it was worthy of the modern image the exterior presented.
According to one author, “The interior of the Empire State Building consists
of two sections: the main entrance lobby off Fifth Avenue and the long
corridors and elevator banks which, with the inner store windows and
entrances, create the effect of a grand concourse. The main lobby is a long,
high, narrow hall. … The north and south walls of the main lobby are lined
with storefront windows and doors. The upper portions of the two long
corridors running the length of the building east to west consist of blocks of
marble set to look like three horizontal bands stretching the length of the
walls. The lower portion of the walls closest to the street contain storefronts…
The doors and windows are enframed by modernistic metal strips and are set
off from each other by vertical panels of rounded marble. Along the inner
walls are five openings leading to the elevator banks. Above the central
opening at the mezzanine level on either corridor is a striking, modernistically
designed aluminum bridge, giving access to the mezzanine offices from the
second floor elevators. … The one-story entrance halls leading in from West
33rd and 34th Streets continue the marble walls and storefronts; each has a
zigzag ribbed ceiling, and, where the ceiling meets the walls, there is a long
horizontal lighting fixture with modernistic metal training. ... The openings
along the long corridors lead to one-story halls with four or five elevators on
either side. The door of each elevator is designed with a modernistic aluminum
silhouette somewhat suggestive of a skyscraper.”
 Chapter 6: The City Thrilled
“During its 13-month run, the construction was the best show in town, and
the workers the accidental stars. Gawkers lined up every day to watch.
Someone set up a telescope in Bryant Park and charged a nickel a pop,
providing close-ups of the men as they reached higher and higher into the New
York sky. The city thrilled to their mad ascent. But when the work was done,
those thousands of men walked away and disappeared into the obscurity of
their lives. In May 1931, the building opened with great pomp. President
Hoover, all the way down in Washington, threw a switch that turned on the
power. A number of dignitaries gathered to bluster about the great
accomplishment. The ceremony was broadcast live on radio. Not many of the
workers showed up.” – Thomas Kelly, author of Empire Rising
When the majestic building was finally completed, the men who had led in
its construction met on April 16, 1931 for an elaborate dinner “to celebrate the
completion of an enduring monument, a towering milestone on the road of
human progress.” The engraved menu paid tribute not just to the food but to
the event: “Far above the sidewalks of New York soars the Empire State. To
the public it is a mighty symbol: a supreme expression of Man the Builder. To
those who have participated in its making, it has been a great adventure; an
adventure made possible by the vision and scientific knowledge that can turn
dreams into stone and steel. The makers of the Empire State are here tonight:
the owners, whose faith was an inspiration; the architects, whose boldness and
simplicity of design was the solution of unprecedented problems; the builders,
who brought skill, speed and unselfish co-operation to their task. To each
comes the thrill of participation. To each comes the pride in accomplishment.”
The official dedication took place a few weeks later, with Al Smith’s two
grandchildren cutting the large red ribbon across the Fifth Avenue door. When
asked why he had chosen the children to cut the ribbon instead of some
important dignitary, Smith explained that he had built the Empire State
Building “for generations to come down through the ages, and the two small
children, with scarcely the proper understanding of just what was going on,
were there to symbolize for all time to come that this building is to be a
monument for generations to come.”
 Of course, that doesn’t mean there were no dignitaries present. Indeed,
Governor Roosevelt, whose eyes were already on the White House, was on
hand to admire the building and make an appropriate speech. During the
speech, he admitted to being a “little awestruck” by the Empire State Building,
and after visiting the 86th floor observation tower, he added, “In looking out
from this building, I have got an entirely new conception of things in the city
of New York.” Mayor Jimmy Walker, who had served with Smith for many
years, added jovially, “I have this consolation in that, and this satisfaction, that
no matter what we tax you, you know that it is worth it.” A band played the
national anthem and Smith read out various congratulatory telegrams,
including one from Lamb who was then on his way across the Atlantic: “One
day out at sea and I can still see the building.”

Smith and Roosevelt on the observation deck

 Mayor Walker
Perhaps the most important message came from the President of the United
States, the long-suffering Herbert Hoover, who wrote, “I MOST CORDIALLY
congratulate you and your associates upon the completion of the Empire State
Building and the opening of its doors to the service of the public. This
achievement justifies pride of accomplishment in everyone who has had any
part in its conception and construction and it must long remain one of the
outstanding glories of a great city.” After this was read, Hoover symbolically
pressed a golden telegraph key from his office in the White House, ordering
the lights in the building turned on. Bathed in the light coming from several
thousand windows, one reporter called the building “one more splendor to
Manhattan’s enchanted isle.” Later, an editorial in the New York Times opined,
“The ceremonies marking completion of the Empire State Building are only a
kind of climax to what has long been going on under the eyes of the people of
this city. They have seen the audacious plan formed. They have watched the
majestic design of the architect taking form in one upward flight after another
toward the clouds.”
While most new construction projects meets with at least symbolic
opposition, critics of the Empire State Building were few and far between.
Architecture critic George S. Chappell gushed, “The world’s tallest building,
the Empire State Building, still continues to command much attention, nor can
we feel that contemplation of it will ever become unprofitable. Its designers,
Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, have endowed it with such clean beauty, such purity
of line, such subtle uses of material, that we believe it will be studied by many
generations of architects, a hazardous prophecy in these days of change.
Moreover, aside from its technical interest, its appeal to the layman is palpably
enormous. In spite of Frank Lloyd Wright’s characteristically sweeping
statement that our modern skyscrapers are all the same, we claim that this one
is distinctly different, its difference and distinction lying in the extreme
sensitiveness of its entire design.”
The New York Times similarly praised the building: “Such a union of beauty
and strength in a great building makes of it a valuable possession for the whole
community. Men and women, boys and girls who have occasion to gaze daily
at the splendid lines and massive structure of the Empire State Building will
not easily reconcile themselves to architecture that is cheap or mean or even
extravagantly whimsical.”
Nevertheless, not everyone loved the building. For instance, architect Philip
N. Youtz complained that the building was “a milestone marking the
beginning of modernism, [with] no attempt at novelty, no tendency to
welcome the bizarre,” and William Orr Ludlow, of the American Institute of
Architects, proclaimed that nobody would “be misled by the lot of worthless
stuff recently put on the architectural market. It has not been done by real
architects, but by men who mistook novelty for beauty, who, scorning
everything traditional, have used lightning strokes, acute angles and bizarre
geometric patterns ad nauseam. All this has been copied and duplicated
because it is supposed to express modern art. Modern expression in
architecture that has real and enduring artistic value is exemplified in the
Empire State.”
 Chapter 7: Smashed Records
“All the trades smashed records. The standard for erecting steel was three
floors a week. On the Empire State Building, the ironworkers often threw up
five floors in a week, or a story a day. At the peak of construction, on Aug.
14, 1930, 3,439 men were at work on site. Construction is a dangerous job,
and men sometimes die doing it; the Empire State Building was no exception.
Most jobs at the site were performed on the edge of the abyss; that was where
the carpenters hammered together their forms, or molds, and where the
stonemasons hung the building's granite skin. There were no hard hats, no
safety harnesses and no jobs for the faint of heart. The more radical press of
the day wrote apocryphal stories of mass death on the site brought on by
capitalist greed. In truth, Starrett Brothers paid much more attention to safety
than was customary for the time, even placing nursing stations throughout the
project. In the end, between the demolition of the Waldorf-Astoria and the
construction of the Empire State, a dozen men died, far fewer than typical for
major projects of that era.” – Thomas Kelly, author of Empire Rising
The Empire State Building was greeted by plenty of pomp and circumstance
in May 1931, but that wouldn’t necessarily make it a success story. As Shreve
observed, “The completed building has then to meet the test in the place where
it stands; it must find or create a demand for its accommodations, or it must
fail. It cannot move to a new market; only at great expense, if at all, can it be
altered to a more marketable type, and even greater expense may be involved
in its demolition if a new start is to be made. Location, use, character of space
and time of building must be decided right the first time, and in these decisions
the architect collaborates; he does not control.”
Indeed, it has mostly been forgotten that the Empire State Building remained
largely empty during its first two decades. First, the Great Depression stifled
business, and then World War II led to most of the country’s industries
focusing their attention on war-related items. It was only during the post-war
boon of the 1950s that the shops were finally fully occupied. At the same time,
however, the emptiness inside didn’t detract from the exterior’s beauty, which
featured more than 10,000 square feet of different colored marble. Smith was
quick to point out this detail to anyone who would listen, telling one reporter,
“The marble you see on the upper part of the walls— the kind that looks like
wonderful, pale, old Oriental rugs—is called pink Famosa, and the marble on
the lower walls, the deep-hued, richly red marble is Estralante.”
Nonetheless, given that the building opened with many of its stores and
offices still unlet, Smith knew that he would have to generate income in
another way. Therefore, he went out of his way to encourage people to visit
the Empire State Building just for fun. He was wildly successful in this
endeavor, and before long, the building’s famous observatories had to remain
open until 1:00 a.m. at night. Visitors looking down to the street “saw men and
motor cars creeping like insects through the streets; they saw elevated trains
that looked like toys.” The London Daily Mail observed that people were able
to see “Lilliputian motor-cars halting or moving forward in groups appearing
like a slow procession. They see trains gliding along like worms and people as
ants scarcely moving…neighboring buildings, monsters of steel and stone
when viewed from below, [were] dwarfed to insignificance.”
At least one newspaper observed “evidence that the sightseers’ space was
turning out to be a profitable venture financially as well as an advertising
medium for the corporation,” but it was the building’s architecture that
attracted people just as much as the views. The New York Sun reported, “No
one seemed to be staying long in the highest observatory. … Nothing to see
but mist, nowhere to sit, not a tremendous amount of room, and perhaps a
rather odd feeling, being up so high [in] the dungeon of a medieval keep,
painted silvery and raised among the clouds!” Writing for the New York
World Telegram, Earl Sparling disagreed: “It was down below the clouds and
you could see something. Not being able to see very much, the customers
have started a habit of scratching their initials in the walls up in the tower
room.” This satisfaction was short-lived, since the initials were sandpapered
off once a week.
Smith was also proud of the building’s comfort and its modern system of
elevators. One reporter described a visit: “[W]hen you step out of the elevator
on the 86th floor…you find yourself in comfortable and luxurious
surroundings and just as SECURE and SAFE as you would be in your own
home. Here you will find a Writing-room for your convenience, a…Ladies’
Retiring Room and a Gentlemen’s Retiring Room.” The writing room was a
huge success, as visitors scurried from the souvenir shop, newly purchased
post cards in hand, to its tabled spaces to complete their correspondence.
According to the London Daily Mail, “Then they stepped to a slot in the wall
and sent their messages dropping down, down, down to the ground floor,
ready for the postman.”
While tourists loved to visit the Empire State Building, local New Yorkers,
after the first flurry of excitement, seemed to take it for granted. Walter
Winchell complained about this as early as 1934: “One of the better known
New York girls returned from Paris last week and she gushed and gooed about
her trip to the Eiffel Tower heights. ‘Have you ever been to the top of Al
Smith’s Empire State Building?’ one of us asked her. She hadn’t. She never
thought of seeing New York, New Jersey and the Sound that way, at all. And I
suppose many of us here haven’t gone to… Smith’s tower— but were we in
Paris— we’d certainly take in the Eiffel Tower, which is a midget by
comparison.”
Over time, the Empire State Building became more popular, and as people
continued flocking to the observation deck on clear days, those who had once
dismissed it as being just another building came around. Charles Hanson
Towne, a poet from New York, made it to the skyscraper in October 1931 and
wrote, “Here it was, at last, in all its iron and agate glory, and I viewed it as an
eagle might have viewed it…You cannot speak at first. You simply stand, like
any automaton, waiting for the spectacle to sink into your consciousness … I
strove to locate all the other skyscrapers, the towers of which I had eagerly
climbed, as each had outdone the other; and they looked like dwarfs, and I
wondered why I ever had considered them anything at all.” Years later,
Johnston D. Kerkhoff, a reporter with the New York Journal, observed in
1936: “The sun was setting when we got there. Everywhere you turned,
Manhattan was agleam; the Hudson was golden lava; cool winds that never
whisper at street level brought relief to body and soul; and there stirred within
me a long-dormant pride, almost a boastful pride, of THE CITY. Not pride
exactly, but something tingling, that was yet peaceful and warming.”
Of all the views from the top of the towering tribute to beauty and skill,
perhaps none was as eloquent as that expressed by one who could not see at
all. Writing of her own trip to the 86th floor, famous author Helen Keller said,
“I was pleasantly surprised to find the Empire Building so poetical. From
everyone except my blind friend I had received an impression of sordid
materialism — the piling up of one steel honeycomb upon another with no real
purpose but to satisfy the American craving for the superlative in everything.
… The highest, the largest, the most costly is the breath of his vanity. Well, I
see in the Empire Building something else — passionate skill, arduous and
fearless idealism. The tallest building is a victory of imagination. Instead of
crouching close to earth like a beast, the spirit of man soars to higher regions,
and from this new point of vantage he looks upon the impossible with fortified
courage and dreams yet more magnificent enterprises. … As I stood there
'twixt earth and sky, I saw a romantic structure wrought by human brains and
hands that is to the burning eye of the sun a rival luminary. I saw it stand erect
and serene in the midst of storm and the tumult of elemental commotion. I
heard the hammer of Thor ring when the shaft began to rise upward. I saw the
unconquerable steel, the flash of testing flames, the sword-like rivets. I heard
the steam drills in pandemonium. I saw countless skilled workers welding
together that mighty symmetry. I looked upon the marvel of frail, yet
indomitable hands that lifted the tower to its dominating height. Let cynics and
supersensitive souls say what they will about American materialism and
machine civilization. Beneath the surface are poetry, mysticism and inspiration
that the Empire Building somehow symbolizes. In that giant shaft I see a
groping toward beauty and spiritual vision. I am one of those who see and yet
believe.”
In the coming years, the Empire State Building became a pop culture fixture,
whether it was for an appearance in King Kong or for having a B-25 bomber
crash into it in 1945, an accident that changed regulations in the area. Decades
later, an application to declare the Empire State Building a National Historic
Landmark put it all into perspective:
“The Empire State Building rises 1250 feet and is 102 stories high
(observatory level). It is 1472 to the top of the TV tower. There are
2 basement levels, 80 stories of commercial office space, 5 stories
of executive offices, an 86th floor observatory, and a 14-story tall
mooring mast. The building occupies a half-block between 5th and
6th Avenues and West 33rd and West 34th Streets. … The building's
tower sits on a five-story base, with elevations on West 33rd Street,
Fifth Avenue, and West 34th Street. The base is a monumental
modernistic version of a classical scheme: basement, colonnade,
and attic. The basement is formed by the first floor shops and
entrances; the colonnade is approximated by a giant order of
molded stone piers flanking vertical window strips; and the attic
consists of small windows alternating with molded stone panels…
“The Fifth Avenue facade centers on the building's main entrance,
a central pair of doors flanked by revolving doors; a three-story-
high, three-bay-wide set of windows set in modernistically designed
patterns; and an attic story of a pair of windows, all set off from the
rest of the facade by two giant molded-stone piers topped by
stylized stone eagles above which are inscribed the words EMPIRE
STATE. The rest of this facade is comprised of monumental bays,
three on either side, each consisting of a storefront of chrome-metal
and glass at the first floor level, two three-story vertical window
strips separated by a narrow stone mullion and flanked by a wide
stone pier with a modernistic top in place of a capital, and two
windows at the fifth-floor level separated by a narrow squat
molded-stone mullion and flanked by wide squat stone piers. The
nearly identical 33rd and 34th Street elevations each consist of three
sections of monumental bays, similar to those on the Fifth Avenue
facade, separated by two entrance bays. The three sections consist
of six, seven, and six bays, slightly emphasizing the central section.
The two entrance bays on W. 34th Street which project slightly
outward, are less elaborate versions of the main Fifth Avenue
entrance bay. The two West 33rd Street entrances, however, are
recessed; these Entrances have sets of side doors perpendicular to
the building front and front revolving doors; the doors are set in
marble walls. Modern light fixtures hang in the center of the
recesses. Streamlined banded metal marquee-type canopies with
curving corners project over the entrances on West 33rd and West
34th Streets. The original storefronts are almost entirely glass-
fronted. Each has a black granite base, a cornice of horizontal
molded-aluminum bands framing a black granite panel, and a
central recessed entrance. The individual stores are separated by
narrow molded aluminum mullions topped by modernistic finials.
The storefronts form a glass wall which projects three feet beyond
the base and forms a banding around it. The continuous black
granite cornices are at the same level as the metal canopies over the
33rd and 34th Street entrances and form a black band course at that
level.”

A picture of wreckage from the plane crash in 1945

A graph of New York City’s tallest buildings today
 The Empire State Building today

Bibliography
Kelly, Thomas. Empire Rising. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. (2005)
Kingwell, Mark. Nearest Thing to Heaven: The Empire State Building and
American Dreams. Yale University Press. (2007)
Rasenberger, Jim. High Steel: The Daring Men Who Built The World's
Greatest Skyline. HarperCollins. (2004)
Tauranac, John. Empire State Building: The Making of a Landmark. Simon
& Schuster. (1995)
Wagner, Geraldine. Thirteen Months to Go: The Creation of the Empire
State Building. Thunder Bay Press. (2003)