The Empire State Building is more than a tall address on Fifth Avenue: it is a record of how New York remade its skyline during the building boom of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Construction began on March 17, 1930, and the 102-story tower officially opened on May 1, 1931. The speed is striking, but the building’s lasting appeal comes from the way engineering, decoration and public spectacle were joined in one project.
Its site had previously held the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. A new company, Empire State Inc., organized the project, with architects Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and builders Starrett Brothers and Eken. The official chronology records an unusually rapid construction schedule, made possible by a steel frame, carefully coordinated deliveries and repetitive work. It was an ambitious commercial venture in an uncertain economic moment, not a monument conceived apart from the city’s business life.
