The EMPIRE STATE BUILDING, the best known and most famous skyscraper in the world, was constructed in 1931 at the site of the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (1897) and celebrated its 75th anniversary on May 1, 2006. 

 

The words “New York City” and “skyscraper” are almost synonymous although the first skyscraper (consisting of nine stories and a basement) was built in Chicago in 1885 and the word “skyscraper” was originally a nautical term used to describe “the tallest mast of a sailing ship.”  

 

The Empire State building itself is 1250 feet tall with an overall height of 1454 feet (including its 204 feet broadcasting antenna) and it – along with the Chrysler Building and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Building --dominated the Manhattan skyline until the WORLD TRADE CENTER twin towers were completed in the late 70s.  On a sunny and clear day, the view encompasses 80 miles.  

 

 A searchlight beacon, announcing that Franklin D. Roosevelt had been elected President in November 1932, was the first light on the top of the building.  Floodlights and other lighting systems have been used over the years but the current tradition of color-theme lights was first introduced to celebrate the American Bicentennial (red/white/blue) on the Empire State’s towers in 1976.  The lighting effect is accomplished by lighting the 1,336 light fixtures on the 72 to 102nd floors of the building.  The tradition has continued and the lighting changes colors frequently to signify occasions ranging from United Nations Day (blue/white/white), Oscar week (gold), Earth Day (green/blue/blue) to the Stonewall Anniversary/Gay Pride Week (lavender/lavender/white).  A new ring of sodium vapor lights was installed in 1984 to create a golden halo appearance around the mooring mast (first used for dirigibles) – at the very tip of the building­.  The lights are turned off during the fall migration season of birds because they confuse the birds.  

 

Movie fans will remember King Kong atop the Empire State Building while others may recall Cary Grant waiting in vain for Deborah Kerr at the building’s observation deck in An Affair to Remember.  In 1945, the Empire State Building survived an encounter with a B-25 bomber which accidentally struck it in heavy fog.  Eleven people in the building as well as the pilot and two others in the plane died.