Photos

After 5 days of parties, after a long Xmas lunch with parents and relatives and with a never ending list of dishes...GREEN LIGHT FOR VACATION!

Tomorrow will go on the Alps for 9 days, with few snow, i hope just for that moment, and with many time to sleep and have peacefull afternoon on the sofà looking to the fire, drinking good wines and talking with friends...

So, again, Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!
CIAO!
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In the image a view of the Empire State Building

The tower rises to 1,250 feet (381 m) at the 102nd floor, and its full structural height (including broadcast antenna) reaches 1,453 feet and 8 9/16th inches (443 m). It was the first building to have more than 100 floors.

It remained the tallest skyscraper in the world for a record 41 years (and the world's tallest man-made structure for 23 years) until the construction of the World Trade Center, and shortly afterwards the Sears Tower. Following the events of September 11, 2001, the Empire State Building regained the title of tallest building in New York City, and the 2nd tallest building in the United States (see the 50 Tallest buildings in the U.S. list).

The building weighs approximately 330,000 metric tonnes. The building has 6,500 windows, 73 elevators and 1,860 steps to the top floor. Total floor area: 2,200,000 square feet (200,000 m²)

The Empire State Building is located at 350 Fifth Avenue, ZIP Code 10118, between 33rd and 34th Streets, in Midtown Manhattan, at approximately 40°44′55″N, 73°59′11″W.[1] It is directly across from Weehawken Cove, on the other side of the Hudson River.

On May 1, 2006, The Empire State Building celebrated its 75th birthday.

The site was first developed as the John Thomson Farm, in the late 18th century. The building stands on a block once occupied by the original Waldorf Hotel, a place frequented by The Four Hundred, the social elite of New York, in the late 19th century.


Worker bolting beams during construction.Excavation of the site for the Empire State Building began on January 22, 1930, and construction on the building itself started on March 17. Cincinnati Ohio's Carew Tower, built before the Empire State Building was conceived, served as the basis for the design of the larger Empire State Building, as evidenced by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates' ability to produce the building drawings for the Empire State Building in just two weeks.

The project involved 3400 workers, mostly European immigrants, along with hundreds of Mohawk nation iron workers. 14 of the workers died during construction.[2]

The project was hurried to completion in order to take the title of "world's tallest building" from the nearby Chrysler Building.[citation needed] The Empire State Building was officially opened on May 1, 1931, when President Herbert Hoover pressed a button in Washington, D.C. that turned on the building's lights, 410 days after construction commenced.

From its opening until the 1940s much of its office space went unrented. This lack of inhabitants earned it the nickname "Empty State Building" in its early years.[3]

More than thirty people have committed suicide from atop the building.[4] The fence around the observatory terrace was put up in 1947 after five people tried to jump over a three-week span.[5] In 1979, Elvita Adams jumped from the 86th floor, only to be blown back onto the 85th floor and left with only a broken hip.[6] The building was also the site of suicides in 2004 and 2006.[7]

At 9:49 a.m. on Saturday July 28, 1945, a B-25 Mitchell bomber flying in a thick fog accidentally crashed into the north side between the 79th and 80th floors, where the offices of the National Catholic Welfare Council were located; one engine shot through the side opposite the impact and another plummeted down an elevator shaft. The fire was extinguished in 40 minutes. 14 people were killed in the accident.[8] Despite the damage and loss of life, the building was open for business on many floors on the following Monday, July 30, 1945. The building was the first of two skyscrapers in Manhattan that have been accidentally impacted by airplanes, the other being the Belaire Apartments in the Upper East Side in 2006 (The twin towers of the World Trade Center, although also were hit by airplanes, were brought down by an act of deliberate destruction and not accidents).

Following the accident, elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a plunge of 75 stories inside an elevator, and currently holds the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall recorded.[9]

The large broadcasting antenna rising from the top of the spire was added in 1952.


[edit] Floodlights
Floodlights illuminate the top of the building at night, in colors chosen to match seasonal and other events, such as Christmas. After the eightieth birthday and subsequent death of Frank Sinatra, for example, the building was bathed in blue light to represent the singer's nickname "Ol' Blue Eyes." After the death of actress Fay Wray in late 2004, the building stood in complete darkness for 15 minutes.

The floodlights bathed the building in red, white, and blue for several months after the destruction of the World Trade Center, then reverted to the standard schedule.[10] Traditionally, in addition to the standard schedule the building will be lit in the colors of New York's sports teams on the nights they have home games (orange, blue and white for the New York Knicks, red, white and blue for the New York Rangers, and so on). The building is illuminated in tennis ball yellow during the U.S. Open tennis tournament in late August and early September. It was once even lit Scarlet red for a Rutgers University football game on November 9th, 2006, when they played the University of Louisville in what would result in the biggest win in school history.[11]

In June 2002, during the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, New York City illuminated the Empire State Building in purple and gold (the monarchical colors of the Royal House of Windsor). New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that it was a sign of saying thank you to HM The Queen for having the National Anthem of the United States played at Buckingham Palace after September 11, 2001, as well as the support Great Britain provided afterwards.

From Wikipedia