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KF5JRV > TODAY 01.05.19 13:37l 45 Lines 2256 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 35522_KF5JRV
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Subj: Today in History - May 01
Path: IW8PGT<IR2UBX<SR1BSZ<OK0NBR<IW0QNL<VE2PKT<N3HYM<KF5JRV
Sent: 190501/1134Z 35522@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.18
On this day in 1931, President Herbert Hoover officially dedicates New
York City’s Empire State Building, pressing a button from the White
House that turns on the building’s lights. Hoover’s gesture, of course,
was symbolic; while the president remained in Washington, D.C., someone
else flicked the switches in New York.
The idea for the Empire State Building is said to have been born of a
competition between Walter Chrysler of the Chrysler Corporation and John
Jakob Raskob of General Motors, to see who could erect the taller
building. Chrysler had already begun work on the famous Chrysler
Building, the gleaming 1,046-foot skyscraper in midtown Manhattan. Not
to be bested, Raskob assembled a group of well-known investors,
including former New York Governor Alfred E. Smith. The group chose the
architecture firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon Associates to design the
building. The Art-Deco plans, said to have been based in large part on
the look of a pencil, were also builder-friendly: The entire building
went up in just over a year, under budget (at $40 million) and well
ahead of schedule. During certain periods of building, the frame grew an
astonishing four-and-a-half stories a week.
At the time of its completion, the Empire State Building, at 102 stories
and 1,250 feet high (1,454 feet to the top of the lightning rod), was
the world’s tallest skyscraper. The Depression-era construction employed
as many as 3,400 workers on any single day, most of whom received an
excellent pay rate, especially given the economic conditions of the
time. The new building imbued New York City with a deep sense of pride,
desperately needed in the depths of the Great Depression, when many city
residents were unemployed and prospects looked bleak. The grip of the
Depression on New York’s economy was still evident a year later,
however, when only 25 percent of the Empire State’s offices had been
rented.
In 1972, the Empire State Building lost its title as world’s tallest
building to New York’s World Trade Center, which itself was the tallest
skyscraper for but a year. Today the honor belongs to Dubai’s Burj
Khalifa tower, which soars 2,717 feet into the sky.
73 de Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
email: KF5JRV@GMAIL.COM
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