Empire State Building

The Empire State Building, located at 350 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City is one of the most famous buildings in the entire world. The 102-story, 1,472 foot high building is primarily an office building with 15,000 office spaces available, but also contains a shopping mall, telecommunications and broadcasting center and serves as a tourist attraction with its two observation decks and New York Skyride tour. When the building was first complete in 1931 it was at the height of the Depression and the owners of the building found it hard to rent out the office space. Some New Yorkers began calling the building the Empty State Building.

Some of the more noteworthy office tenants include: Accessory Network Group, Capital Markets Group, Boy Scouts of America, Coty Inc., Brennan Beer Gorman Architects, Goldin Associates LLC, Garan, Inc, Funaro & Co., P.C., Juicy Couture, Human Rights Watch, Skanska USA , Lufthansa Airlines and Taylor Communications. Retail clients include: AT&T Experience Store, Cafe Europa, Bank of America, Federal Express, Chipotle, Men’s Wearhouse, Heartland Brewery, Walgreen’s and Starbucks.

The Empire State Building is also a major tourist attraction. Over 3.5 million people visit the building each year. The building offers two observatory decks on the 86th floor and 102nd floor that offers breathtaking panoramic views of New York City and the surrounding regions. On clear days one can see up to 80 miles away, and see parts of Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. The building also offers a simulated aerial tour of New York City called the New York Skyride where visitors sit on a platform with an 18-foot high screen and take a virtual tour narrated by Kevin Bacon over New York City.

Many celebrities and dignitaries have also visited the Empire State Building over the years. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip visited the 86th floor observatory deck in 1957. Queen Elizabeth declared the view the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Other notable celebrities to have visited the famous skyscraper include Fidel Castro in 1959, Nikita Khrushchev in 1959, Pele, the soccer star in 1975, the rock band Kiss in 1976, Fay Wray, the actress of King Kong Fame in 2004, as well as Ronald McDonald and Tom Cruise, also both in 2004.

The building has also been made famous by appearing in many movie classics. The building is probably most famous for its appearance in the classic King Kong movie where Kong climbs to the top of the Empire State Building to try to escape his pursuers, only to fall to his death. The skyscraper has also made its appearance in many other movies including An Affair to Remember, Annie Hall, Guys and Dolls, Independence Day, Manhattan, Sleepless in Seattle, and When Harry Met Sally.

The Empire State Building is also famous for its colorful floodlights at the top of the building. There is a yearly lighting schedule that the building follows to commemorate holidays, special events and other occasions. During the Christmas season, green and red lighting are used and orange, blue and white lights are used when the New York Knicks are at home playing at Madison Square Garden.

The Empire State Building, currently the tallest building in New York City and one of the most well known buildings in the world, is mostly made up of office space. However, the building also serves as a major broadcasting station for New York City, which is the biggest media center in the U.S. Ever since the World Trade Center was destroyed in September 2001, most of the commercial television and FM radio broadcast stations have used the top of the Empire State Building to transmit their programs.

Broadcasting at the Empire State Building began in 1931, the year the building opened. Experimental broadcasts were conducted by RCA from an antenna that was on top of the building’s spire. RCA rented the 85th floor and built a lab. Later the 85th floor was used for RCA’s television operations. First it was an experimental TV station, W2XBS channel 1. In July 1941, this channel became commercial station WNBT, channel 1 (which is currently WNBC-TV channel 4). In 1940, WEAF-FM (currently known as WQHT), an NBC FM station, started transmitting from the antenna.

NBC had exclusive right to transmit from the top of the Empire State Building until 1950. At that time the FCC broke the exclusive deal because of consumer complaints that they had to constantly adjust their antennas when switching television channels. By this time New York had 7 television stations. They needed to broadcast from a common location so that viewers would not have to constantly adjust their antennas. A giant broadcasting tower was constructed. Other TV broadcasting stations moved into the Empire State Building with RCA up on the 81st, 82nd and 83rd floors, and often brought FM radio stations with them. Construction was completed on the new broadcasting tower in 1951 and multiple FM radio and TV transmissions began. Separate FM antennas were added in 1965 surrounding the 102nd floor observation deck.

Construction of the World Trade Center caused difficulties for the TV stations. Upon completion of the World Trade Center, most of the television stations moved there. At this point the transmitter facilities and antenna structure at the Empire State Building were renovated for the FM radio stations that were still there. Other FM and UHF TVs moved into the Empire State Building from other places in the New York metro area. When the World Trade Center was destroyed, a lot of changes had to be made to the transmitter rooms and antennas to facilitate the move of many of the stations from the World Trade Center back to the Empire State Building.

Currently the Empire State Building houses 44 television and radio states, and both digital and analog signals. The building also contains the Western Hemisphere’s biggest FM combiner system. The Empire State Building also has over 100 antennas that provide data communication services and point-to-point radio services to telecommunication and utilities companies as well as public safety agencies. The lower levels of the building have antenna locations that are available for broadband and cellular users.