Talk:Empire State Building

Duration of highest building in the world

Hi, I think there might be a typo in the « 42 » years tallest skyscraper duration.

As it is said to be finished in 1931 and surpassed in 1970 (top-out date of the north world trade center earlier in the page. And in the “world trade center” page), it is a total of 39 years according to theses dates.

The wikipedia page “History of the world's tallest buildings” in section “List of historically tallest skyscrapers” sates that the duration is 40 years with 1971 as the date of completion of the world trade center.

it think it should specified that it is 39years until the top-out date of world trade center, or 40years until the completion.

Thank you very much for your support! 37.169.37.197 (talk) 01:23, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Elevators

The elevators in the building have undergone many modernizations since installation. The first modernization was done by Millar, and the second modernization was done by Otis. The elevators leading to the observation decks are manned by operators using remote controls. 100.11.10.40 (talk) 03:30, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

section "1980s and 1990s" -- Prudential, Yokoi, Helmsley, Trump -- ownership is misstated

Hi all- this section says "Prudential sold the land under the building in 1991 for $42 million to a buyer representing hotelier Hideki Yokoi". To my knowledge this is a misstatement. The ownership of the _land_ and the _building_ was never separated. The issue was that the _prime leaseholders_ (Helmsley and Malkin) held the lease for decades into the future, and the lease payments were small relative to the subleasing income. Therefore the building (and the land) weren't worth very much.

Yokoi, sitting in prison, sent his daughter Kiiko Nakahara out to lock up his assets by purchasing trophy properties. The Empire State Building was one of these. It wasn't just the land that was sold -- *it was in fact the building*. But Helmsley and Malkin still held the master lease.

Incidentally, though I'm not sure it merits being in the article, Trump's involvement was to convince Nakahara that he would sue Helmsley and Malkin to break the master lease, at which point he would have been able, by contractual arrangement with Yokoi, to redevelop the top floors into luxury condos. This, of course, never came to pass.

I suggest clarifying that Prudential sold the BUILDING, not just the land.

References:

0) https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB940289924191804324

1) https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1991/11/01/367091.html?pageNumber=83

2) https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1991/05/20/612291.html?pageNumber=1

3) https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Obsession-Betrayal-Battle-American/dp/0471403946

4) https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1016495483951865600 Ghomsy1 (talk) 07:26, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

Ah. Here's the article I read in 1998 that first clued me in to this story. It gives the tersest explanation:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB897278676875528500?mod=Searchresults&pos=1&page=1 Ghomsy1 (talk) 07:33, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

You raise a good point regarding the ownership. Your reference (1) is actually already in the article, but I'll look at what the WSJ says later this week. In the meantime, I've changed this to "Prudential sold the property..." – Epicgenius (talk) 16:59, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

Setback advantages.

The article currently states that setback at the highest floors allows more light into the windows of those floors. That's at best very confused. The floors that benefit from a setback to allow light in are the lower floors. The issue with light and setbacks on higher floors is that that setback can reduce shading of the street below and neighboring buildings. Anyone who has doubts about this could draw a simple sketch with light rays and see how it works. You don't need to set back the upper floors to get light in, but you might want to set back the lower floors for that purpose (assuming the upper floors don't hang over the lower floors).

My edit summary said that I removed that confused text because it wasn't the correct reason for the setback. I should have said that it wasn't a correct advantage of it, as the sentence does not directly claim that the design was for that purpose. Ccrrccrr (talk) 13:19, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

@Ccrrccrr, you may be right that this isn't the main advantage and was merely a side effect. But the real reason for the setbacks has nothing to do with noise levels or illumination of the interior offices - it was entirely because they were mandated under the 1916 Zoning Resolution, although this is mentioned in the next paragraph. The sentence was just describing the effects of the setbacks. – Epicgenius (talk) 13:47, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

I appreciate your contribution in clarifying that this is about the effect and not the motivation. I acknowledged my sloppiness in writing my edit summary about that.

Now that we've agree about that, can we address the intent of my edit, as detailed in my first paragraph above? Now that we've agreed that it's about effects, not reasons for, the setbacks, we need to make it accurately describe the effect. The setbacks near the base help get light into the lower floors, 6th and above. The setbacks of the upper floors do not get more light into the higher levels, vs. if it had just been straight at the top.

That's simple physics, not anything to do with the history or intent of the design process. Ccrrccrr (talk) 14:15, 17 April 2026 (UTC)