Offices inside empire state building5/1/2024 The race for the sky High up on the Empire State Building, 1930 Lewis Hine-Alamy That’s bad news for the city’s coffers property taxes are the largest source of revenue for the city, with commercial property taxes leading that category.īut, as office buildings grapple with how to cope after a year of working from home, the Empire State Building’s experience with economic uncertainty may offer a hint of what’s to come: recovery is possible, its story suggests, with a little bit of the faith Roosevelt embraced-and a lot of money. Amid the spread of COVID-19, many of the building’s tenants, like those of other office buildings around the city and world, have closed their offices: The New York Times reports that 14% of offices in midtown Manhattan were vacant as of December 2020. Bettmann Archive/Getty Imagesīut that anniversary comes amid a situation that would have been familiar to those early boosters. At the time, there were 88 stories finished. An aerial photograph of The Empire State Building from October 1930. At 1,250 feet to the 102nd-floor observatory-and another 200 to the top of the broadcast tower-the Empire State Building may no longer be the tallest building in the New York City skyline, but it’s arguably still the most recognizable skyscraper in the world. The Great Depression had already begun a massive new office building could have been an ill-timed waste of money.īut Roosevelt’s words proved prescient, as the building made it through the Depression, through the Second World War and all the way to its 90th birthday this week. The future President’s comments came at a moment when not everyone would have had that faith. Smith points out the sights of the city to Governor Roosevelt from an Empire State Building observation floor on May 1, 1931. The new skyscraper, he said, was a symbol of “vision and faith”: vision, because only those who looked to the future could have imagined such a project, and faith, in believing the work would be “fully justified in the days to come.” Former Governor Alfred E. Roosevelt, then Governor of New York, spoke at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for what was then the world’s tallest building, the Empire State Building. Though its structural integrity was not affected, the crash did cause nearly $1 million in damages, about $10.5 million in today’s money.On May 1, 1931, an “awestruck” Franklin D. The three people on the plane were also killed.Īn 18 foot by 20 foot hole was left in the side of the Empire State Building. All 11 victims were workers from War Relief Services department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, into the offices of which the plane had crashed. Only 11 people in the building were killed, some suffering burns from the fiery fuel and others after being thrown out of the building. Since it was a Saturday, fewer workers than normal were in the building. Quick-thinking rescuers pulled the woman from the elevator, saving her life. The emergency auto brake saved the woman from crashing to the bottom, but the engine fell down the shaft and landed on top of it. The other engine snapped an elevator cable while at least one woman was riding in the elevator car. Other plane parts ended up embedded in and on top of nearby buildings. One engine from the plane went straight through the building and landed in a penthouse apartment across the street. Upon impact, the plane’s fuel exploded, filling the interior of the building with flames all the way down to the 75th floor and sending flames out of the hole the plane had ripped open in the building’s side. It swerved to avoid the building but the move sent it straight into the north side of the Empire State Building, near the 79th floor. ![]() ![]() The bomber was flying relatively slowly and quite low, seeking better visibility, when it came upon the Chrysler Building in midtown. This new flight plan took the plane over Manhattan the crew was specifically warned that the Empire State Building, the tallest building in the city at the time, was not visible. ![]() Air-traffic controllers instructed the plane to fly to Newark Airport instead. As it came into the metropolitan area on that Saturday morning, the fog was particularly thick. ![]() The B-25 Mitchell bomber, with two pilots and one passenger aboard, was flying from Bedford, Massachusetts, to LaGuardia Airport in New York City. The freak accident was caused by heavy fog. A United States military plane crashes into the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945, killing 14 people.
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