(ANSA) – NEW YORK MAY 2 – The Empire State Building in New York, which at 443 meters high, including the antenna, is no longer the tallest in the city, turns 90 years old and is still the icon of one of the destinations preferred by travelers from all over the world
After being surpassed in height in the 1970s by the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center – destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 – the Empire was recently surpassed by other buildings.
They are mostly super-thin structures, kind of needles on the city’s skyline, which change their appearance year after year.
Anyway, nothing beats the myth of the Empire State Building, the symbol of the Big Apple that today celebrates its first 90 years
“Paris has the Eiffel Tower, London has Big Ben, Los Angeles has the Hollywood sign. But in New York there is the Empire State Building,” said Lilly Turtle, curator of the Museum of the City of New York.
The skyscraper was built in the years of the Great Depression, when Americans lined up to buy bread and the unemployment rate was 15.9%, a period often compared to the crisis of the coronavirus pandemic.
“They had no trouble finding the workers,” said John Tauranac, author of an essay on the skyscraper. Like today, “people were desperate for a job”
It took more than 13 months to complete the steel and reinforced concrete building at a cost of $ 41 million, a fortune for the time. New Yorkers crowded around the construction site to watch the gigantic tower rise to touch the clouds
The work rate was one flat per day
The world knew him in the early 1930s thanks to the film “King Kong” (1933), whose black and white panoramas still captivate movie lovers.
Since then, the building served as the setting for dozens of films and television series
The Empire State Building, now powered by wind energy, has more than 70 elevators, 6,500 windows and 100 kilometers of pipes
A good way to exercise is to climb its 1,860 steps. The prize is the two observation decks that allow a spectacular 360 ;; panoramic view: from Massachusetts to Delaware on the clearest days
There are plenty of anecdotes about the skyscraper. In 1945 a plane crashed sideways causing the death of 14 people, while in 1986 two Englishmen jumped from the 86th floor with a parachute to be arrested upon reaching the ground.
It was one of the first attractions to reopen to visitors on July 20 after the first closure imposed by the pandemic in New York.
In recent years, it has undergone renovations that have cost 165 million dollars, including a new panoramic terrace, a glass elevator, a museum space and a new entrance. (ANSA)
