(WYTV) – The original blueprint of the Empire State Building is in a museum inside the building itself. The museum highlights the history and significance of the building.
John Jakob Raskob came up with the overall plan for the Empire State Building with only one order for his architects: build it as high as you can without the building falling over.
The Empire State Building was finished ahead of schedule and under budget, opening its doors on May 1, 1931.
We were in the Great Depression and that meant that three quarters of the Empire State Building’s rooms went unoccupied in the 1930s. New Yorkers called it the Empty State Building.
But the building’s owners kept on all the lights in the 1930s to give an impression it really was full of people.
A jeweler named Jack Brod kept his leased space in the skyscraper from 1931 until his death in 2008. He was the last original tenant to die.
It has no apartments, you can’t live there, but you can rent a suite of rooms for $1,500 dollars a night.
Including its antenna, the Empire State Building stands 1,453 feet high.
It held the title of the World’s Tallest Skyscraper from 1931 to 1970, until the World Trade Center was complete.
When the twin towers fell on 9/11, the Empire State Building became New York’s tallest again until 2012, when the incomplete One World Trade Center surpassed its height.
The Empire State Building has a total of 102 floors.
It hosts an annual racing event, the Empire State Building Run-Up, first held in 1978.
From the lobby to the 86th floor’s observation deck: a vertical quarter mile race, 1,576 stairs.
