EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

REPORT BY;
SNEH DHENGARE | 06
VAISHNAVI C. KAMBLE | 16
SHRUTI TELI | 39
• The Empire State Building was the highest building in the world for forty Years. It was constructed in New York (USA) an era when
American cities such as Chicago and New York competed to have the highest skyscrapers.
• To make way for the new skyscraper the old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Fifth Avenue was demolished. Demolition started in March
1930 and the construction of the new building was completed in fourteen months, on May 14th, 1931.
• The architects, Shreve, Lamb and Harmon Associates, were given the brief of creating the tallest building in the world. To achieve
this, they decided to use a steel frame as the basic construction technique. The builders, Starrett Brothers and Eken Incorporated
were skilled in using this construction method. Due to its size, it originally had 64 elevators to aid the distribution of people up and
down the building.
HEIGHT:
When completed, the buildings overall height was 1472 feet (448 meters). This included the antenna at the top of the building. The
original idea was that the antenna would be used to dock airships. However, this was dropped when it was realized that people were
unlikely to enjoy disembarking an airship, that was tethered to the building, at the height of over a thousand feet.

FORM:
The Empire State Building has a symmetrical massing, or shape, because of its large lot and relatively short base. The five-story
base occupies the entire lot, while the 81-story tower above it is set back sharply from the base. There are smaller setbacks on the upper
stories, allowing sunlight to illuminate the interiors of the top floors, and positioning these floors away from the noisy streets below. The
setbacks are located at the 21st, 25th, 30th, 72nd, 81st, and 85th stories.
The setbacks were mandated as per the 1916 Zoning Resolution, which was intended to allow sunlight to reach the streets as well.
Normally, a building of the Empire State's dimensions would be permitted to build up to 12 stories on the Fifth Avenue side, and up to
17 stories on the 33rd/34th Streets side, before it would have to utilize setbacks.
However, with the largest setback being located above the base, the tower stories could contain a uniform shape. According to
architectural writer Robert A. M. Stern, the Empire State Building's form contrasted with the nearly contemporary, similarly designed
500 Fifth Avenue eight blocks north, which had an asymmetrical massing on a smaller lot.

Vital Statistics:
Location: New York, New York,
USA
Completion Date: 1931
Cost: $41 million
Height: 1,250 feet
Stories: 102
Materials: Steel
Facing Materials: Limestone,
granite, brick
Engineer(s): H.G. Balcom

MATERIAL:
FAÇADE:
The Empire State Building's art deco design is typical of pre–World War II architecture in New York. The facade is clad in Indiana
limestone panels sourced from the Empire Mill in Sanders, Indiana, which give the building its signature blonde color. According to
official fact sheets, the facade uses 200,000 cubic feet (5,700 m3) of limestone and granite, ten million bricks, and 730 short tons
(650 long tons) of aluminum and stainless steel. The building also contains 6,514 windows.
MAIN ENTRANCE PAVILION ON FIFTH AVENUE:
The main entrance, composed of three sets of metal doors, is at the center of the Fifth Avenue facade, flanked by molded piers
that are topped with eagles. Above the main entrance is a transom, a triple-height transom window with geometric patterns, and the
golden letters empire state above the fifth-floor windows. There are two entrances each on 33rd and 34th Streets, with modernistic,
stainless-steel canopies projecting from the entrances on 33rd and 34th Streets there.
 The facade of the tower stories is split into several vertical bays on each side, with windows projecting slightly from the limestone
cladding. The bays are arranged into sets of one, two, or three windows on each floor. The windows in each bay are separated by vertical
nickel-chrome steel mullions and connected by horizontal aluminum spandrels on each floor.
According to official fact sheets, the Empire State Building weighs 365,000 short tons (331,122 t) and has an internal volume of
37 million cubic feet (1,000,000 m3).[267] The interior required 1,172 miles (1,886 km) of elevator cable and 2 million feet
(609,600 m) of electrical wires. The Empire State Building has a total floor area of 2,768,591 sq ft (257,211 m2), and each of the floors
in the base cover 2 acres (1 ha). This gives the building capacity for 20,000 tenants and 15,000 visitors.
The Empire State Building contains 73 elevators. Its original 64 elevators, built by the Otis Elevator Company, are located in a
central core and are of varying heights, with the longest of these elevators reaching from the lobby to the 80th floor. As originally built,
there were four "express" elevators that connected the lobby, 80th floor, and several landings in between; the other 60 "local" elevators
connected the landings with the floors above these intermediate landings.
Of the 64 total elevators, 58 were for passenger use (comprising the four express elevators and 54 local elevators), and eight were
for freight deliveries. The elevators were designed to move at 1,200 feet per minute (366 m/min). At the time of the skyscraper's
construction, their practical speed was limited to 700 feet per minute (213 m/min) as per city law, but this limit was removed shortly
after the building opened.
Additional elevators connect the 80th floor to the six floors above it, as the six extra floors were built after the original 80 stories
were approved. The elevators were mechanically operated until 2011, when they were replaced with automatic elevators during the
$550 million renovation of the building.
An additional elevator connects the 86th and 102nd floor observatories, which allows visitors access the 102nd floor observatory
after having their tickets scanned. It also allows employees to access the mechanical floors located between the 87th and 101st floors.
The Empire State Building has 73 elevators in all, including service elevators.
 STRUCTURAL DETAIL:
A structural steel contract was awarded on January 12, 1930, with excavation of the site beginning ten days later on January
22,[86] before the old hotel had been completely demolished. Two twelve-hour shifts, consisting of 300 men each, worked
continuously to dig the 55-foot (17 m) foundation. Small pier holes were sunk into the ground to house the concrete footings that
would support the steelwork.[88] Excavation was nearly complete by early March, and construction on the building itself started on
March 17, with the builders placing the first steel columns on the completed footings before the rest of the footings had been finished.

Around this time, Lamb held a press

conference on the building plans. He described
the reflective steel panels parallel to the
windows, the large-block Indiana Limestone
facade that was slightly more expensive than
smaller bricks, and the building's vertical lines.
Four colossal columns, intended for installation
in the center of the building site, were
delivered; they would support a combined
10,000,000 pounds (4,500,000 kg)
when the building was finished.

• The structural steel was pre-ordered and pre-fabricated in anticipation of a revision to the city's building code that would have
allowed the Empire State Building's structural steel to carry 18,000 pounds per square inch (120,000 kPa), up from 16,000
pounds per square inch (110,000 kPa), thus reducing the amount of steel needed for the building.
• Although the 18,000-psi regulation had been safely enacted in other cities, Mayor Jimmy Walker did not sign the new codes into
law until March 26, 1930, just before construction was due to commence.[90][93] The first steel framework was installed on April 1,
1930. From there, construction proceeded at a rapid pace; during one stretch of 10 working days, the builders erected fourteen
floors. This was made possible through precise coordination of the building's planning, as well as the mass production of common
materials such as windows and spandrels.
• On one occasion, when a supplier could not provide timely delivery of dark Hauteville marble, Starrett switched to using Rose
Famosa marble from a German quarry that was purchased specifically to provide the project with sufficient marble.
• By June 20, the skyscraper's supporting steel structure had risen to the 26th floor, and by July 27, half of the steel structure
had been completed. Starrett Bros. and Eken endeavored to build one floor a day in order to speed up construction, a goal that
they almost reached with their pace of 4+1⁄2 stories per week; prior to this, the fastest pace of construction for a building of
similar height had been 3+1⁄2 stories per week.
• While construction progressed, the final designs for the floors were being designed from the ground up (as opposed to the
general design, which had been from the roof down). Some of the levels were still undergoing final approval, with several
orders placed within an hour of a plan being finalized. On September 10, as steelwork was nearing completion, Smith laid the
building's cornerstone during a ceremony attended by thousands. The stone contained a box with contemporary artifacts
including the previous day's New York Times, a U.S. currency set containing all denominations of notes and coins minted in
1930, a history of the site and building, and photographs of the people involved in construction.
• The steel structure was topped out at 1,048 feet (319 m) on September 19, twelve days ahead of schedule and 23 weeks after
the start of construction. Workers raised a flag atop the 86th floor to signify this milestone.

• The scale of the project was massive,

with trucks carrying "16,000 partition
tiles, 5,000 bags of cement, 450
cubic yards [340 m3] of sand and
300 bags of lime" arriving at the
construction site every day. There
were also cafes and concession stand
on five of the incomplete floors so
workers did not have to descend to
the ground level to eat lunch.
Temporary water taps were also built
so workers did not waste time buying
water bottles from the ground level.
• Additionally, carts running on a small railway system transported materials from the basement storage to elevators that brought the
carts to the desired floors where they would then be distributed throughout that level using another set of tracks. The 57,480 short
tons (51,320 long tons) of steel ordered for the project was the largest-ever single order of steel at the time, comprising more steel
than was ordered for the Chrysler Building and 40 Wall Street combined.
• According to historian John Tauranac, building materials were sourced from numerous, and distant, sources with "limestone from
Indiana, steel girders from Pittsburgh, cement and mortar from upper New York State, marble from Italy, France, and England, wood
from northern and Pacific Coast forests, hardware from New England."[95] The facade, too, used a variety of material, most
prominently Indiana limestone but also Swedish black granite, terracotta, and brick.

• The riveted steel frame of the building was originally designed to handle all of
the building's gravitational stresses and wind loads. The amount of material
used in the building's construction resulted in a very stiff structure when
compared to other skyscrapers, with a structural stiffness of 42 pounds per
square foot (2.0 kPa) versus the Willis Tower's 33 pounds per square foot (1.6
kPa) and the John Hancock Center's 26 pounds per square foot (1.2 kPa). A
December 1930 feature in Popular Mechanics estimated that a building with
the Empire State's dimensions would still stand even if hit with an impact of
50 short tons (45 long tons).
• Utilities are grouped in a central shaft. On the 6th through 86th stories, the
central shaft is surrounded by a main corridor on all four sides. As per the final
specifications of the building, the corridor is surrounded in turn by office space
28 feet (8.5 m) deep, maximizing office space at a time before air conditioning
became commonplace. Each of the floors has 210 structural columns that pass
through it, which provide structural stability, but limits the amount of open
space on these floors.

• However, the relative dearth of stone in the building allows for more space overall, with a 1:200 stone-to-
building ratio in the Empire State compared to a 1:50 ratio in similar buildings.

CONCLUSION-
FACTS:
1. The total cost for the Empire State building was $40,984,900 (building and
property cost)
2. It took 1year and 45 days for the whole construction
3. It took 7 million man-hours