The first skyscrapers appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. The first of them was built in Chicago, but today the greatest number of skyscrapers is located in New York in Manhattan. They consist of the skeleton construction, which is the main part. Going up and down inside the building is possible thanks to the safe elevators, which were constructed by Elisha Otis.
Empire State Building
Empire State Building is one of the most famous office building in Manhattan. The skyscraper is located at the number of 350. It is well-known all over the world and is still the symbol of New York. Empire State Building belongs to the highest constructions in the world. It used to be the highest building, but today there are even higher ones.
Empire State Building is impressive. It has 102 floors and it is 381 meters high. The height with the aerial on the roof equals 430 meters. The skyscraper is located near the Fifth Avenue and its total area is 8 hectares. It is estimated that the building weighs over 331 thousands tones. The foundations of the building aren't deep. The whole construction is supported with huge steel girders. Every one of them weighs over 54 thousands tones. Building's construction is made of steel and it is joined with the rivets. The workers used over 10 millions bricks to build the building and over 629 kilometres of electric wires were needed. The whole surface of windows equals 2 hectares. There are 1860 steps to the top of the building. There is also annual competition in climbing up the stairs. The best time record to climb to the top was 20 minutes. Over 15 thousands people work in the offices. Every hour the elevators lift about 10 thousands of them.
The project of Empire State Building was designed by Shreve, Harmon and Lamb. The total cost of the building equalled over 41 millions dollars. Empire State Building was erected very fast. Every week 4,5 floors were built.
Empire State Building was opened at the beginning of May 1931. The building was ready after over 410 days of building. It was designed in the Art Deco style. When you enter the building, you will be a 3-floor-high hall. It is also 30 metres long. On the walls there are pictures of seven miracles of the world and among them there is Empire State Building as the eighth miracle.
However there are higher buildings in the world, Empire State Building is still the symbol of New York.
World Trade Center
The building of World Trade Center began in 1966 and the building was ready in March 1973. It was consisted of seven integral buildings and the twin towers were the most famous of them. One of the towers was 415.22 metres high and at the top of the second one the aerial was located, so this tower was higher and it equalled 521.2 metres. The aerial was higher than the one located on the top of the Sears Tower. There were 110 floors in these buildings and their total area was 406 thousands metres square. There were 99 lifts in each tower and every one of them has 43600 windows, which equalled 182880 m2 of glass. Over 50 thousands people worked in their offices. The building was visited by over 70 thousands tourists each day. In the second tower on the 107th floor there was a view terrace, from which the amazing view was spreading. The total surface of the whole complex of these 7 buildings was over 1114800 metres square.
The towers collapsed in 2001 after the terrorist attack. Today there are some projects to rebuild the towers. These towers were the symbols of America and the free trade.
Chrysler Building
The other skyscraper in New York is Chrysler Building. The building progress of this skyscraper was amazing. It was designed by William van Allen for Walter Chrysler. There was a kind of competition between William van Allen and his former co-worker, who was building the Bank of Manhattan in Wall Street. William van Allen built the building of 282-meter-high. His rival built higher roof, which made his building higher for over 0,5 meter and broke the world record. Then van Allen put on the roof the spire, which was a kind of surprise. Chrysler Building reached 319 metres. Chrysler Building was the highest building for only several months. Then Empire State Building overtook it. Empire State Building was the highest building in the world to the end of the 60s.
