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-   -   NEW YORK | The Empire State Building | 1,472' Pinnacle | 103 FLOORS | 1931 (https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=149360)

NYC2ATX Feb 15, 2008 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CoolCzech (Post 3343433)
The lobby of this Art Deco skyscraper, designed by William Lamb and completed in 1931, is being restored.

[b]A plastic-panel dropped ceiling in the lobby, added in the 1960s, is being removed. In its place will go a re-creation of the original ceiling, a gold-leaf-on-canvas abstraction of planets and stars. A re-creation, rather than a restoration, is necessary because removing the white paint slapped over the original art was deemed too costly and difficult, explains Richard Metsky, an architect with Beyer Blinder Belle Architects and Planners, which is handling the renovation. Crews will stretch a new canvas over the old one, preserving it in case future generations ever develop a more cost-effective restoration method.

Overall, Metsky hopes to improve the character of a lobby whose triple-height main entry and buffed gray-and-lilac terrazzo floors has in recent years been muddled by bulky security gates and garish storefront signs. Renovations, which begin in July and will last until March 2008, will add rows of cold cathode bulbs to brighten the dim space, which encompasses half a city block and has five entrances. Back-lighted illustrations of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, added in the 1960s, will be removed.

Beyer Blinder Belle is particularly suited to the project, having restored Grand Central Terminal and the Chrysler Building, both nearby New York City landmarks with highly decorative ceilings.

.....god......fucking 1960s.

Aside from that, it's so great about this restoration, and I think it's awesome that they are recruiting the restorer of Chrysler and GCT, two very well-turned out restoration jobs, IMO. I'll have to visit the Empire State when I'm home in the summer.

lol that'd be so awesome if they actually did come up with a better restoration method, and then they're all "What idiots paint over artwork, and then cover it with canvas?"

NYguy Feb 18, 2008 10:23 AM

Some pics taken over the past couple of weeks, including yesterday, Feb. 17, 2008...


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93120187/medium.jpg_http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93120203/medium.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93120217/medium.jpg_http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93120233/medium.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93120272/medium.jpg_http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93120234/medium.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93120272/large.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93120290/large.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93120289/large.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93120291/large.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93120292/large.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93120300/large.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93120305/large.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93120308/large.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93120310/large.jpg

GioFX Feb 18, 2008 11:01 PM

The King!!!

I cannot wait to be there next spring!

viewguysf Feb 19, 2008 4:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by StatenIslander237 (Post 3356280)
.....god......fucking 1960s.

"What idiots paint over artwork...?"

The same type of idiots who demolished the Roxy and gutted your Paramount, just like ours who destroyed the San Francisco Fox. Those were incredible palaces that can never be created again, unlike our 60's Fox Plaza highrise which replaced the theater. :yuck:

Urban Sky Feb 19, 2008 5:12 AM

^^ its disgusting.

JDRCRASH Feb 19, 2008 5:34 AM

Was the green lighting for enviro-advertisement?

NYguy Feb 19, 2008 12:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH (Post 3363754)
Was the green lighting for enviro-advertisement?

I forgot what it was for, but the colors change frequently enough that I don't even bother to keep up with the meaning...

Manahata Feb 19, 2008 4:05 PM

Green lights....I think It was in October, Ramadan or something

gttx Feb 19, 2008 6:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by viewguysf (Post 3363601)
The same type of idiots who demolished the Roxy and gutted your Paramount, just like ours who destroyed the San Francisco Fox. Those were incredible palaces that can never be created again, unlike our 60's Fox Plaza highrise which replaced the theater. :yuck:

Not to play the "mine is bigger than yours" game, but in the 1950s there was actually a proposal to route I-20 (the main E-W interstate through Atlanta) directly through the historic downtown. Yes, the state actually considered demolishing ALL the buildings from the early 1900s. It was eventually moved south a bit, but we have still had a virtual plague of building demolitions...many of them which haven't even resulted in new development.

Case in point: what the hell were people thinking during this decade?

NYguy Feb 19, 2008 10:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Manahata (Post 3364294)
Green lights....I think It was in October, Ramadan or something

That particular green was a couple of weeks ago. It'll be green again for St Pat's. My favorite is all blue, but I think the all white defines it best.

NYguy Feb 19, 2008 10:35 PM

A few of my fav ESB pics...

http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/62683573/large.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/62683594/large.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/62683639/large.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/52038077/large.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/52038081/large.jpg

JDRCRASH Feb 20, 2008 5:02 PM

Man I love this building!:hyper:

oldpainless Feb 20, 2008 5:24 PM

The quintessential skyscraper.

NYguy Feb 21, 2008 3:38 AM

It's enough to make you go Ape!....:banana:

JDRCRASH Feb 21, 2008 5:07 AM

What's truly technologically awe-inspiring is the fact that it was completed in less than 13 months.

Compare that with the Burj Dubai, which will eventually have taken more than 3 times as long to finish.

NYguy Feb 21, 2008 5:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH (Post 3368777)
What's truly technologically awe-inspiring is the fact that it was completed in less than 13 months.

More impressive to me is when it was built.

JDRCRASH Feb 21, 2008 5:40 AM

^ ^ ^

Exactly.;)

NYguy Feb 22, 2008 2:24 AM

Near or far, the King of the skyscrapers still has a commanding presence.
Pics taken from Newark's Broad Street station...

http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93261107/large.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93261115/large.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/93261117/large.jpg

JDRCRASH Feb 22, 2008 7:35 PM

Go to Google Earth and download the ESB model, tilt the the camera horizontal and you will be amazed on how far you're able to see it!:D

gramsjdg Feb 27, 2008 6:18 PM

Has there ever been a proposal to clean up the antenna on the ESB? It seems to me that short of removing it (that won't fly as it is so identified with the tower since it was added in the '50's) they could make it more of a "spire" like the Chrysler's; maybe chrome/aluminum tube structure or something like that that is solid and more continuous with the rest of the building. Any thoughts?

NYguy Feb 27, 2008 7:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gramsjdg (Post 3381854)
Has there ever been a proposal to clean up the antenna on the ESB? It seems to me that short of removing it (that won't fly as it is so identified with the tower since it was added in the '50's) they could make it more of a "spire" like the Chrysler's; maybe chrome/aluminum tube structure or something like that that is solid and more continuous with the rest of the building. Any thoughts?

It's in heavy use these days.

gramsjdg Feb 27, 2008 7:57 PM

True, I suppose it will be in pretty heavy use until Freedom Tower tops out and can share the broadcasting load.

JDRCRASH Feb 28, 2008 5:26 AM

^
Good analysis. After the WTC's North Tower's antennae came down with the complex, more networks turned to transmitting from ESB's tower.

NYguy Feb 28, 2008 11:02 AM

^ Correct. Both the ESB antenna and the extended antenna on the Conde Nast tower (built after 9/11) are serving now and will continue to serve as backup once the Freedom Tower is built.

NYguy Feb 28, 2008 11:09 AM

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02282008...show_99599.htm

BEAST IN SHOW
KONG STILL KING ON HIS 75TH B-DAY


By LOU LUMENICK
February 28, 2008


NEW York's most famous tourist of all time is turning 75 on Sunday.

We're talking about King Kong, the 50-foot ape from the South Seas who tore down a piece of the old Sixth Avenue elevated subway line and perished at the foot of the Empire State Building after being shot down by Army planes.

All for the love of a blond actress played by Fay Wray.

When "King Kong" opened on March 2, 1933, the city was mired in the depths of the Great Depression. Things were so dire - 25 percent of the population was out of work - that the governor closed all of New York's besieged banks a day earlier.

The film had its world premiere at Radio City Music Hall, and - in an unprecedented move - the long-gone RKO Roxy, a block south on Sixth Avenue at 49th Street. The two huge theaters, with a combined seating capacity of 10,000 seats, both showed "King Kong" with elaborate stage shows that the ads claimed featured "500 singers, dancers, entertainers."

Despite mixed reviews - a critic for The Post wrote that "as a wild-eyed and occasionally cock-eyed spectacle, 'King Kong' is not as effective as it should have been" - there were lines around the block for sold-out shows.

"No money . . . yet New York dug up $89,932 in four days . . . to see 'King Kong,' setting a new all-time word's record for attendance of any indoor attraction," RKO, which was rescued from bankruptcy, boasted in another newspaper ad a few days later.


The story was the same across Depression-scarred America, with "King Kong" becoming the year's most successful film, taking in just under $2 million on a $672,000 investment. The film had several successful reissues, the last major one in 1956 - after its much-watched debut on TV.

"King Kong," which received no Oscar nominations, remains a staple while the film that won Best Picture for that year ("Cavalcade") has long been forgotten. It has been remade twice (in 1976, with the climax moved to the World Trade Center, and, more faithfully, by Peter Jackson in 2005), but it's the 1933 original that lingers in our collective memory.

Fay Wray, whose career went back to the silents, was distressed to find herself typecast in horror movies - while her "King Kong" screams were recycled for the benefit of other actresses with less vigorous lungs.

"I feel so sorry for Kong," she told The Post in 2000, four years before her death at age 96. "I thought he was so touching. Oh, my goodness, I didn't want him to be shot down. He had never done anything to hurt me."

Film Forum (filmforum.org) is celebrating the anniversary Sunday with two showings of the film. A "Fay Wray scream-alike contest" will follow the 1 p.m. screening.

NYguy Feb 28, 2008 11:10 AM

More at
blogs.nypost.com/movies


When "King Kong" premiered in 1933, an ad in The Post boasted of its size,
also noting that "smoking permitted."


http://www.nypost.com/seven/02282008/photos/ent056.jpg

JDRCRASH Feb 28, 2008 5:57 PM

It's strange. My instructor from my college said that when he was traveling along the Interstate 10 in L.A. County, he saw a movie set. He drove by to get a glimpse and clue of what it was going to be.

Well guess what?! The curtain said "King Kong"!
I guess they're doing yet another remake. But it puzzles me. Since the shooting was in SoCal, does that mean that they're coming up with a whole different setting althogether?

NYguy Feb 28, 2008 11:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH (Post 3384067)
Well guess what?! The curtain said "King Kong"!
I guess they're doing yet another remake. But it puzzles me. Since the shooting was in SoCal, does that mean that they're coming up with a whole different setting althogether?

Could be a sequel, don't know. But it doesn't matter, I'd see it.

NYguy Feb 29, 2008 4:52 AM

http://www.amny.com/news/local/am-ki...,5516514.story

'King Kong' still roars over New York

http://www.newsday.com/media/photo/2008-02/36190813.jpg

A scene from the 1933 blockbuster film "King Kong." The Film Forum will be showing the classic flim at 1pm on Sunday March 2, 2008.


By David Freedlander
February 28, 2008


Seventy-five years ago this Sunday, New Yorkers for the first time saw what panic in the city looked like.

The occasion? A love-struck giant ape breaks free of his chains and climbs to the top of the Empire State Building, the city's newly built highest spire. As pandemonium ensues on the screen, audiences at Radio City Music Hall and the now-demolished RKO New Roxy howled with delight.

"Needless to say this picture was received by many a giggle to cover up the fright," said a review in the New York Times one day after "King Kong" debuted on March 2, 1933. "Constant exclamations issued from the Radio City Music Hall yesterday."

The film quickly became one of the first quintessentially New York movies. "It is such a New York movie because no matter who builds what elsewhere, there is nothing like the Empire State Building," said David Brin, author of "King Kong is Back: An Unauthorized Look at One Humongous Ape."

"The Eiffel Tower is just as iconic, but the French would be too blase, and the Sears Tower just wouldn't give you that uniquely New York perspective of an Empire State and a city of immigrants. I mean talk about cognitive dissonance."


On Sunday, the Film Forum will host two showings of the film, and host a Fay Wray "scream-alike" contest in between. Wray played the object of Kong's affection, who enjoys an unscheduled trip with him up the Empire State Building.

Film critic Elliot Stein, 80, is one of the few New Yorkers who can claim to have been at Radio City to witness Kong's introduction to the world. Though he says it is now his favorite film, Stein remembers feeling fear after the premiere that the BMT subway line wouldn't be there to take him and his father back to Brooklyn.

"It's a film in a way about such cockeyed American optimism, with the Empire State Building this central symbol of doing something extraordinary at the start of the Depression."

Though the Empire State Building is the star of the show, the rest of the city plays a supporting role. It opens on the waterfront across the river, with the skyline gleaming in the background. After Kong is captured and brought to New York, he is displayed for the masses at a Madison Square Garden-style venue. But panic in the streets soon erupts when the great ape escapes, and the huge metropolitan police force tries in vain to capture him. Those scenes capture a piece of the American experience that is only true to Gotham in the 30s.

"In New York it was much easier to create a sense of panic, because it's so crowded, and because there is no other place to go," said Claude Samton, an architect and photographer who was 5 when the film came out. "Growing up in New York you become conscious of buildings in a way that you don't elsewhere, and seeing them all film is the beginning of that love affair with the city."

The film has lived on in New Yorkers imaginations, helped by continual showings decades ago on WOR/Channel 9 as part of the "Million Dollar Movie," and with annual screenings on the former RKO station on Thanksgiving Day.

"This is not only how we got to see King Kong but how we got to become familiar with it in a modern way, where you watch it over and over and get to know it frame by frame,"said Bruce Goldstein, director of programming at Film Forum.

"For my generation, it's hard to look at tall buildings in the city now without imagining him up there," Goldstein said.

http://www.newsday.com/media/photo/2008-02/36190818.jpg


http://www.newsday.com/media/photo/2008-02/36190687.jpg

JDRCRASH Feb 29, 2008 7:07 PM

That movie is a classic!:D

All they needed was to feed him a huge :banana: to make him happy! :haha:

NYguy Mar 5, 2008 1:01 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/ny...l?ref=nyregion

Bid to Jump Off 86th Floor Was Illegal, Court Rules


By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
March 5, 2008

New Yorkers may not jump off the Empire State Building, even with a parachute, after all, an appellate court in Manhattan ruled on Tuesday.

The four-judge panel overturned a lower court decision that had found that Jeb Corliss, a professional skydiver who tried to leap from the 86th-floor observation deck in April 2006 did not violate any laws because, among other things, he was experienced and had carefully planned the jump.

The judges, however, reduced the charge in the indictment from a felony charge of reckless endangerment with depraved indifference to life to a misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment.

They said the Manhattan district attorney had conceded that the prosecutor in the case used an outdated standard in instructing the grand jury on the meaning of depraved indifference to life. The new standard, they said, requires a state of mind in which the defendant showed “an utter disregard for the value of human life,” and a willingness to act “because one simply doesn’t care” whether somebody is hurt.

As a result, they said, the grand jury’s consideration of the charge was “impaired.” The judges said they were not expressing an opinion as to whether a “depraved” charge would have been appropriate if it had been properly presented. But the judges rejected as “specious” the contention by Mr. Corliss’s lawyer, Mark Jay Heller, that nothing in the penal law prohibits jumping off tall buildings, saying that such conduct “is clearly encompassed within the reckless endangerment statutes.”

They said that the lower court ruling had improperly relied on Mr. Corliss’s statements to police about his training and planning to decide that he was capable of making the jump without hurting anyone, when those statements had not been presented to the grand jury as evidence.

JDRCRASH Mar 6, 2008 4:16 AM

Why block all attempts to do it even with a parachute?:shrug:

NYguy Mar 6, 2008 8:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH (Post 3397876)
Why block all attempts to do it even with a parachute?:shrug:

Parachute or not, you still have to land somewhere. Manhattan isn't known for its wide open, empty streets.

JDRCRASH Mar 6, 2008 5:59 PM

Is landing on one of the roofs illegal?

UrbanImpact Mar 6, 2008 6:06 PM

:previous: Trespassing?

JDRCRASH Mar 6, 2008 6:20 PM

Are all buildings surround the ESB protected?

NYguy Mar 6, 2008 8:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH (Post 3398987)
Are all buildings surround the ESB protected?

You planning a jump soon?...

JDRCRASH Mar 7, 2008 7:33 PM

^

:jester:

No thank you. My life's going great!:D

Torch Mar 8, 2008 1:16 AM

In less than four weeks I'll be there in the 63 story. I can't wait !:cool:

fastdupree Mar 8, 2008 10:45 PM

I know the Empire State Bldg is 102 stories but I always wished they could raise it atleast 10 or more stories higher and make it's presence even more dominating on the skyline. If your not making the Freedom Tower but 1,368' high, Then atleast add some 20 floors to the ESB with this money and make it the third tallest in the world once BD and CS is completed.

Wrightguy0 Mar 9, 2008 12:32 AM

God I sounded like a little girl when I found out the lobby reno was going to be completed this month, I'm going to NYC in August so I'll be able to check out the restored lobby and the 102 observation deck.

CoolCzech Mar 9, 2008 1:21 AM

An unusual view:

http://www.commercialconstruction.co...hics/esb02.jpg
(commercialconstruction.com)

CoolCzech Mar 9, 2008 1:23 AM

http://evolutionarygoo.com/blog/wp-c.../lightning.jpg
evolutionarygoo.com

http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0210...s%20around.jpg
thinkquest.org

CoolCzech Mar 9, 2008 1:24 AM

Utterly magical:

http://www.mybestdesktops.com/wp-con...e-building.jpg
bestdesktops.com

CoolCzech Mar 9, 2008 1:47 AM

Not everyone knows that the World Trade Center was not the first supertall hit by an airplane - though the US Airforce B-25 Bomber that slammed into the 79th floor of the ESB back in 1945 could have brought the whole structure down if it had been laden with bombs...

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=179


http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question...sb-crash01.jpg
(aerospaceweb.org)

JDRCRASH Mar 9, 2008 2:54 AM

@Fastdupree: :sly:.....:haha:

Dude, that isn't going to happen.

One, it's tall enough.
Two, conservationists would be freaked out.
Third, even if we did do that, it wouldn't stay in 3rd place for long at all.

aluminum Mar 9, 2008 4:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fastdupree (Post 3403642)
I know the Empire State Bldg is 102 stories but I always wished they could raise it atleast 10 or more stories higher and make it's presence even more dominating on the skyline. If your not making the Freedom Tower but 1,368' high, Then atleast add some 20 floors to the ESB with this money and make it the third tallest in the world once BD and CS is completed.

:???: :haha: :haha: :haha: :haha:

fastdupree Mar 9, 2008 6:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH (Post 3404006)
@Fastdupree: :sly:.....:haha:

Dude, that isn't going to happen.

One, it's tall enough.
Two, conservationists would be freaked out.
Third, even if we did do that, it wouldn't stay in 3rd place for long at all.

It is tall but not tall enough in today's world. ESB is my favorite skyscraper on the planet so don't get me wrong. Because of the conservationists, maybe NY should just build a new skyscraper that represents and lives up to the name "Big Apple." Maybe a new ESB.

At Ground Zero, they don't seem to be interested in living up to that even though I like the new WTC. Hopefully we can one day see something built in NY like Shanghi WFC in total height instead of using spires.

When you really think about it, If it's terrorist we worry about knocking them down again, It doesn't really matter what height the building is if it's destroyed so just build the damn skyscrapers the way we wanted to before 911 even happened but much stronger and safe. I just don't think the US will let something like that happen again anyway. Thank God the ESB was built more stronger and rigid than the WTC.

aluminum Mar 9, 2008 7:45 AM

^I agree with your statement about ESB being not tall enough in today's world, but adding floors on top of ESB to make it one of the WTB is downright ridiculous.
I agree that NYC badly needs a mega-hyper-ultra tall skyscraper to show who's the boss.

NYguy Mar 9, 2008 12:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aluminum (Post 3404318)
I agree that NYC badly needs a mega-hyper-ultra tall skyscraper to show who's the boss.

No it doesn't. Even the post 9/11 New York skyline shows "who's the boss". Often imitated, never duplicated. That should be the city's motto now that so many other cities around the world are trying to "Manhattanize". As if...:haha:


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