You are now standing in front of the legendary Empire State Building skyscraper. For nearly 40 years after its construction it held the title of the tallest building on the planet.  The building itself achieves a height of 381 meters, and with its spire 443.2 meters. The construction work began on March 17, 1930.  During the entire period of its construction   3,400 laborers worked here.  After 410 days  construction of the highest building in the world was finished and it opened May, 1931.  It is important to remember that in the years of the Great Depression the building was almost empty with much of the office space unrented.  Therefore, some even called it the Empty State Building.  The building only began to bring a financial return to its owners after almost 20 years.The tower of the building has 86 stories.  The remaining 16 stories are an art deco superstructure ending with an observatory deck on the 102nd floor.  The observation deck of the building from the very beginning attacked a great number of visitors.  Today their number reaches 3.8 million annually.  The more frequented observatory deck is the one on the 86th floor.The carcass of the building was constructed from 60,000 tons of steel.  The building is covered with 10 million bricks and has 6,500 windows.  In one of its 73 elevators you will be able to rise to the 80th floor in a minute. From the late 1970s there is an annual race up to the stairs to the 86th floor - 1,576 steps.  In 2016 he record time was 9 minutes, 33 seconds.Originally the external lighting of the building was installed in the 1960s.  Projectors illuminate the highest part of the building in various colors.  In honor of this or that event this highlighting of the upper floors is done in specially selected colors.After the tragic events of September 2001, when the World Trade Centres were destroyed, the Empire State Building once again became the largest building in New York.Photo Empire State Building by Jeffrey Zeldman is licensed under CC BY 2.0