The Empire State Building is 82 years old on May 1, 2013

The Empire State Building is 82 years old on May 1, 2013
Completed in just 410 days, opening on May 1, 1931

The Empire State Building is located at 350 5th Avenue, New York, New York. It is located on land that once belonged to Native Americans and later the farm of John Thompson in the late 1790s. Thompson sold the farm to Charles Lawton in 1825.

William Backhouse Astor, one of John Jacob Astor’s sons, bought the farm in 1827. John Jacob Astor’s other son, John Jacob Astor, Jr., built a mansion on the northwest corner of 33rd Street and Fifth Avenue in 1859. In 1862 William Backhouse Astor built his mansion next door at the southwest corner of 34th Street and Fifth Avenue.

John Jacob Astor, Jr.’s son, William Waldorf Astor, demolished one of the mansions and erected the Waldorf Hotel on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street in 1893. The other mansion would be demolished in 1897 for the new Astoria Hotel. The new complex was known as the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel was sold to Bethlehem Engineering Corporation in 1928. A new skyscraper was planned for construction on the site designed by architects Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates.

Excavation of the site for the Empire State Building began on January 22, 1930 and construction began on March 17, 1930.

The Empire State Building officially opened on May 1, 1931.

Source: The Empire State Building

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Before the Empire State Building

Fifth Avenue from 33rd Street -Waldorf-Astoria Hotel

Astor Residence, Waldorf Hotel, Holland House Hotel, Marble Collegiate Church in the distance. Fifth Avenue and 34th St. looking south, 1893.

Waldorf-Astoria Hotel

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Empire State Building under construction

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Video: History of the Empire State Building

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Video:  Empire State Building-The Tour

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Video: Airplane crashes into Empire State Building, July 1945

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Video: The Empire State Building’s brand new look

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Video: Empire State Building – Modern Marvels – History Channel Documentary

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Other buildings designed by the architects of the Empire State building
Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates the architectural firm that designed the Empire State Building also designed other tall buildings around the United States.

Reynolds Building, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 1929
Built for the headquarters of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, it was the tallest building in the United States south of Baltimore, Maryland.

Hill Building, Durham, North Carolina 1937

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World Trade Center under construction in lower Manhattan

Tallest building in New York and in the United States