Sitting on the corner of 34th and 5th streets on about two acres of land sits one of man's greatest engineering feats, the granddaddy of all modern skyscrapers, the Empire State building. Standing 1453 feet tall and having 102 stories above the ground is the 102nd observatory, which gives us one of the most breath taking views in the world. As I was standing there I couldn't help from being over whelmed, by the fact that the building that I was standing in was over three times as old as me. The Empire State Building has become an icon for New York. When some one says New York, the first thing that I think of is the Empire State Building, one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. In 1955 the Empire State Building was named one of the "Seven modern Wonders of the western hemisphere." It also became the eighth wonder of the modern world (New York City Insider). .
Excavation began on Jan. 22, 1930 of this building designed by Architects from Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates. They started construction on March 17, 1930. They set a fast pace for constructing this building they were going up 4.5 stories a week that's flying (Empire State Building facts page). When I look back on this building I can't believe how they got this thing up so fast. The tools that they had back in the 30's aren't even in the same ballpark as the tools that we have today and yet it stands still today as one of the world's tallest buildings. If you were to ask me back then how high we would be by the year 2000 I would have probably said at least 250 stories and yet we aren't anywhere near that mark.
The Empire State Building was completed in 410 days this was including Sundays and holidays in all it took about 7,000,000 man-hours to build this massive building. The expected cost of the Empire State Building was estimated to be about $50,000,000 but thanks to the depression it only cost $24,718,000, which was less then half of the original price tag.