History of the Empire State Building

The Eiffel Tower was built in Paris in 1889. It was 984 feet and a great architectural achievement. Its success and notoriety challenged American architects to design and build something on a grander scale. In 1929, The Bank of Manhattan building was completed at 927 feet.

In 1929, John Jacob Raskob, with the concept of the tallest building in mind, purchased property at 34th Street and Fifth Avenue for $16 million. The Waldorf-Astoria was located here but because of the money they could get selling the property they moved to Park Avenue. Mr. Raskob hired Shreve, Lamb and Harmon to design a building as high as they could without it falling down. It was originally designed to be 80 stories but then unexpectedly the Chrysler building plans were made public and it was going to be 81 stories.

Wanting to be the tallest building they went to 85 stories but they were afraid Chrysler would increase their height so they had to come up with something Chrysler couldn’t top. The solution was to top the building with a Dirigible Mooring mast which would take the building to 1,250 feet tall. On completion the Chrysler building was 77 stories at 1,046 feet tall. This made the completed Empire State Building the tallest building in the world for 41 years, until the World Trade Center was built.

Excavation for the Empire State building was begun on January 22, 1922. At its peak, there would be 3,000 men working on the building. In March construction began with the framework going up at 4 ½ stories a week. Masonry work began in June with the main structure being finished in November. In 1931, on May 1, President Hoover officially opened the building by turning on the lights.