Photo of the Day: The venerable Empire State Building
There has been much intrigue, hype, and hyperbole surrounding the building of the skyscraper at the former site of the lamented World Trade Center towers, but now, over a decade later a milestone will be reached in its construction. At some point today if the conditions are right 1 World Trade Center will add its 100th floor, making it the tallest point on the Manhattan skyline. Lost in all the hoopla surrounding the project, however, is that fact that for the last ten years or so, the city's tallest building had been the one that originally held the title back in the 1931.
Elegant, timeless, and as iconic a symbol of the city's urbane strivers as anything else on Manhattan, The Empire State Building was in fact the tallest building on the entire planet until 1972 when the WTC surpassed it. An architectural marvel of its time, it still dazzles. Site of a fictional assault from a giant ape, a real plane crash, and the subject of Andy Warhol's celluloid staring contest in the 1960s, it remains a kind of beacon for locals and visitors alike.
Photo courtesy AP.
