High-rise buildings always attracted tourists. One of the world’s most famous skyscrapers celebrates this year 80 years of its existence – the Empire State Building. Although no longer the tallest building in the world it is still quite impressive.

The Empire State Building (ESB), one of the landmarks and popular attractions of New York City, is a remarkable structure. Opened in 1931, in May ESB celebrated its 80th anniversary.

After it was opened the Art Deco building with its 381 meters (443.2 including the antenna) was recognized as the world’s tallest building until 1972.

The history says that the former president of General Motors, John Jakob Raskob, decided to build a unique and impressive building. The plans for the ESB were made by architects from the Sherve, Lamb & Harmon company.

Originally the building was supposed to have only 80 stories but when they found out that Walter Chrysler’s skyscraper would be taller, they added five more stories. Raskob was, however, still worried that Chrysler could add few meters just before finishing his building, and thus today ECB has a total of 102 stories.

The land was bought on Manhattan and the construction started in March 1930. The construction was extremely well organized and in the end the building was finished in incredible 13 months. Four and half stories were built on average every week and the whole construction cost almost 41 million dollars.

When in 1972 the World Trade Center twins were built (415 and 417 meters), the ESB lost its top position as the tallest building, reported server Tyden.cz. Today, it is the 16th tallest building in the world and third tallest in the U.S.