On a short list of the world’s most famous structures, the Empire State Building draws some 2.5 million visitors a year and remains a masterpiece of the Art Deco-type architecture that flourished in New York City in the 1920s.
Topping out at 1,250 feet upon completion in 1931, before stretching to 1,454 feet with the addition of the Alford Antenna in 1965, the Empire State Building reigned as the world’s tallest skyscraper until the World Trade Center towers were erected in the early 1970s.
However, it wasn’t just the dizzying height that made it the “eighth wonder of the world,” it was the speed which saw the building rise from a dusty lot to the heavens in an astonishing time of one year and 45 days.
A Failed Presidential Election Fueled the Building’s Conception
As described in John Tauranac's The Empire State Building: The Making of a Landmark, The story begins with a collaboration between two prominent New Yorkers. John J. Raskob was serving as chief financial officer of DuPont and General Motors when he was tapped to chair the Democratic National Committee in 1928, charged with propelling four-term Governor Al Smith into the White House.
After Herbert Hoover won the presidency, Smith and Raskob moved on to the real estate boom that was pushing the New York City skyline to new heights. They set their sights on a property between 33rd and 34th Streets and Fifth and Sixth Avenues that housed what had once been the city's swankiest hotel.
"They knew the Waldorf-Astoria was on hard times," Tauranac says now. "Speakeasies were flourishing, and the hotel couldn't sell booze during Prohibition because they were in the public eye, everyone would have known that they were doing it, and so they were losing money."
The duo formed the Empire State Corporation in mid-1929 with several colleagues, installing the well-known Smith as president for his promotional skills and influence, and purchased the 197.5-by-425-foot lot for somewhere between $16 and 17 million.
The corporation then hired architects Richmond H. Shreve and William Lamb—soon to be joined by Arthur Loomis Harmon—to design what was originally intended to be a 65-story building. However, Raskob and Smith wanted to go bigger, prompting a reimagining of the structure into an 80-story, 1,000-foot office tower.
Adding to the challenge would be the ambitious schedule proposed by ownership. Thanks to city laws that demarcated May 1 and October 1 of each year for the start of new commercial leases, Smith and Raskob wanted the building open by May 1, 1931, leaving the group just 21 months between the first architectural sketches and the fully realized final product.
Function Dictated Form
With no time to waste, Shreve and Lamb set about designing a structure that would maximize the amount of high quality office space. They quickly decided on a layout of a central core containing the "vertical circulation"—elevators, plumbing, mail chutes—to be surrounded by a 28-foot-wide perimeter of rentable area.
The exterior of the building would be shaped by time and cost restraints. Limestone was durable, easy to cut, and relatively inexpensive. A facing lined by chrome-nickel steel mullions would add ornamental variety in lieu of fancy flourishes. And by leaving room for a wide setback—a steplike recession—atop the five-story base, the designers could create a soaring tower that both adhered to zoning requirements and satisfied Raskob's desire to have the building resemble an upturned pencil.
Along with the accelerated time schedule, the architects soon realized they had to contend with the egos of the property's owners. Upon learning that the under-construction Chrysler Building was adding a spire that would raise the building to 1,048 feet, Smith and Raskob sent Shreve, Lamb and Harmon back to the drawing board, resulting in plans for a five-story penthouse that pushed the Empire State Building to 85 floors and 1,050 feet.
That still wasn't big enough for ownership. "So they came up with what I describe as the looniest building scheme since the Tower of Babel," says Tauranac. "They determined that they would put a dirigible mooring mast atop the building which would take the building to 1,250 feet high."
Demolition of Existing Property Was Difficult
Meanwhile, demolition of the lot's existing property was underway by fall 1929 and proving something of a nuisance.
"The Waldorf-Astoria turned out to be much better built than anyone realized," says Tauranac. "It had much thicker walls, took much longer to tear it down, cost a lot more money than anybody expected, and what to do with all the rubble was problematic."
Additional issues surfaced when an excavation team began digging a 40-foot hole for the foundation in January 1930.
"Manhattan is filled with underground streams," notes Tauranac. "And so they came across one, which they originally dammed, but then they realized the dam wasn't going to hold, so they had to roof it over."
Construction Marked by Highly Efficient Processes
From the time the first of the building’s 210 steel columns was set in the foundation on March 17, 1930, an efficient assembly line kept limestone, wood, marble, brick, cement and mortar funneling to the site by trucks.
Steel was marked by codes indicating which derrick would be doing the heavy lifting, enabling the columns to be stacked at a rate reaching 4 1/2 stories per week. Other materials were hoisted from a docking area and loaded onto manually operated railway carts that zipped across tracks installed on each floor.
With at least 3,000 men working on the structure at the height of production, sidewalk crowds often gathered to gawk at workers tiptoeing across beams or teams of riveters tossing red-hot fasteners to each other across floors.
"These teams of four riveters were a real unit, and if one of them was sick and didn't show up to work one day, nobody on that team of four would go to work," explains Tauranac. "Their coordination was so specific that they couldn't have an interloper come and fill in for them."
Amazingly, the major divisions of construction, including the steel framework, the concrete floors, and the exterior stone and metal, were all completed several days to weeks ahead of schedule. That cleared the path for rapid installation of plumbing and wiring, followed by the tasks of flooring, plastering, painting, and decorating.
Meanwhile, Smith put his political influence to good use by successfully lobbying for two key changes to New York City's building codes. The first was an increase in the steel bearing load from 16,000 to 18,000 pounds per square inch, which saved time and money when it came to purchasing and installing the material. The second was a boost in elevator speed from 700 to 1,200 feet per minute, allowing the building's passengers to reach the 80th floor in less than 60 seconds.
Smith also managed to convince the U.S. Navy to research the feasibility of his dirigible mooring mast, but its final installation was ultimately abandoned after a couple of shaky attempts to dock a blimp at the mast. Instead, the area of the 86th floor observatory that was earmarked for ticket purchases became "the world's loftiest tearoom and soda fountain," while the planned loading station of the 102nd floor became a second observation deck.
Owners Struggled to Fill the Building
Finished with a few weeks to spare, the Empire State Building opened on May 1, 1931, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and a special lighting display ignited by a switch from the White House.
While the 86th floor observation deck was an immediate hit, drawing 17,000 visitors over the first four days, the scramble to have offices ready for the spring rental season turned out to be unnecessary amid the lack of demand of the Great Depression.
“When the building opened they could only rent space on some of the lower floors,” explains Tauranac. “They had a lunch club on the 25th floor, so they had regular elevator service operating from the first floor to the 25th. There were no offices rented between the 26th and 80th floors, so they established express service to the 80th to serve the visitors to the observation deck.
“Management would turn on the lights in bare offices just to create the illusion that the building was full, but it didn’t fool anyone. Soon it was nicknamed the 'Empty State Building.' It was that bad.”
While speed was the name of the game when it came to raising this great structure, the owners would have to patiently await the post-war boom for commercial success. In the meantime, they could content themselves with the widespread praise of the architectural community, a signal that the Empire State Building would eventually stand as a singular icon of a crowded skyline.
