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Empire State Building Fast Facts

By CNN

(CNN) — Here’s a look at the Empire State Building.

Facts

Located on Fifth Avenue between 33rd and 34th streets in Manhattan.

It is 103 stories tall (1,250 feet to top floor, excluding height of antennae, which is 204 feet).

Took only one year and 45 days to build, or more than seven million man-hours.

There are observatories on both the 86th and 102nd floors.

The building has been featured in several movies such as “An Affair to Remember,” “Sleepless in Seattle,” “Elf” and “The Amazing Spider-Man.”

From the observation decks, visitors can see as far as 80 miles away into New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts on a clear day. The distinctive binocular viewers around the building were made by Tower Optical company.

The tower lights are turned off on foggy nights during the spring and autumn bird migration seasons, so the lights will not confuse birds and cause them to fly into the building.

Every year on Valentine’s Day, couples who marry on the 80th floor become members of the Empire State Building Wedding Club. They receive free admission to the observatory each year on February 14 thereafter.

Over thirty people have jumped to their deaths from the Empire State Building.

The Empire State Building Run-Up is an annual race up the stairs to the 86th floor (1,576 steps).

The building has 24/7 security. It is monitored with security technology, such as CCTV cameras, and the screening for visitors is similar to airport security procedures.

Timeline

1928-1929 – The famous Fifth Avenue Waldorf Astoria Hotel is sold to Bethlehem Engineering Corporation. Soon after Empire State Inc. is formed by members of the Dupont family and a former General Motors executive. Former New York Governor Alfred E. Smith is named head of the newly formed corporation.

March 17, 1930 – Construction begins with 3,000 workers building 4.5 floors per week.

April 1931 – At completion, it becomes the tallest building in the world.

May 1, 1931 – President Herbert Hoover turns on the building’s lights, officially opening it, by pressing a button in Washington, DC.

July 28, 1945 – At the end of World War II, an Army Air Corps B-25 twin-engine bomber plane crashes into the 79th floor of the building, due to foggy conditions. Only two stories are damaged, but 14 people are killed.

1951 – The building is sold for $34 million to a group led by Roger Stevens and Col. Henry J. Crown. The group sells the title to Prudential Insurance Company of America. PICA agrees to a long-term lease.

1954 – Col. Crown and his Chicago group purchase the building.

1961 – An investment group headed by Lawrence Wien purchases the building for $65 million.

1973 – The construction of the World Trade Center in Manhattan ends the Empire State Building’s reign as the tallest building in the world.

May 18, 1981 – The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission declares the building a landmark.

June 24, 1986 – National Parks Service recognizes it as a National Historic Landmark.

September 11, 2001 – Becomes the tallest building in New York again after the collapse of the World Trade Center. The new One World Trade Center reclaims the title in 2012.

2002 – Peter L. Malkin purchases the building while holding the 114-year lease; becomes owner and manager.

February 13, 2012 – Malkin Holdings LLC, which controls the Empire State Building, files for an initial public offering for a real estate investment trust for the building and two other properties it controls. The filing puts the estimated value for the Empire State Building at $2.5 billion.

November 6, 2012 – The Empire State Building partners with CNN and displays presidential election results in real time on a new LED panel.

August 22, 2018 – A new entrance for Observatory visitors at 20 West 34th Street is unveiled as part of the Empire State ReBuilding Project. The new entrance, to be completed by the end of 2019, is the first renovation.

November 26, 2019 – The 80th floor redevelopment is completed. New components to the final phase of the $165 million-dollar project are new art exhibits, panoramic views of many renowned landmarks around the city, and several interactive experiences.

November 9, 2023 – Actor and singer Jared Leto climbs the Empire State Building in a stunt to promote the world tour of his band Thirty Seconds to Mars, completing the first-ever climb of the skyscraper.

July 1, 2026 – Two people, Angelina Nikolau, 33, and Ivan Kuznetsov, 32, climb atop the Empire State Building, unfurl a banner, and appear to mark their engagement. The couple are arraigned on July 2 on felony charges and released under court supervision.

Characteristics

Cost: $40,948,900 (including land)

Building Alone: $24,718,000 (less than anticipated by half, due to the Depression)

Area of Site: 79,288 square feet (7,240m) or about two acres. East to west, 424 feet (129m), north to south, 187 feet (56.9m).

Lobby: 47 feet (14.3m) above sea level

Height: The base of building rises five floors above the street. The entrance is four floors high. The lobby is three floors high. From the 60-foot setback on the fifth floor, the building soars without a break to the 86th floor.

Total Height: 1,454 feet (1,453 feet, 8 9/16th inches) or 443.2m to top of lightning rod
– To 86th Floor Observatory: 1,050 feet
– To 102nd Floor Observatory: 1,250 feet
– 102nd Floor to tip: 230 feet

Height of Antenna: 204 feet

Floors: 102

Steps: 1,860 from street level to the 103rd floor

Weight: 365,000 tons

Windows: 6,514

Street Level Access: Five entrances on 33rd Street, Fifth Avenue and 34th Street

Elevators: 73, including six freight elevators

Escalators: There are eight high-speed escalators in the concourse and second floor areas.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

Trump’s top general is ‘looking for an off-ramp’ from Iran war as US military options remain limited, sources say

By CNN
(CNN) — Over the last few weeks, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine has privately made clear to other top Trump advisers that the US needs to find an off-ramp from the war with Iran — because the military options on the table to escalate the conflict could backfire and airpower alone is unlikely to achieve President Donald Trump’s stated objectives, according to three sources familiar with the matter.“Caine is looking for an off ramp,” one of the sources said bluntly.Caine is not alone in his view that the war has reached a crossroads. He has discussed concerns about the military options for escalating the conflict and raised the prospect of finding an off-ramp from the war with other key Cabinet officials, including CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance, two of the sources said.The top US general has recently side-barred with some of those key, like-minded Trump advisers in an effort to facilitate interagency coordination and ensure they are on the same page ahead of meetings with the president. The aim has been to make clear the limitations and pitfalls of the available military options, including those that do not involve putting US boots on the ground, the sources said.“I think it is just his way of protecting the military,” one of the sources told CNN, referring to Caine’s discussions with other top national security officials within Trump’s cabinet about the Iran war.Trump has consistently appeared averse to the idea of deploying ground troops in Iran, instead signaling he believes that air bombing can force them to agree to a deal on his terms. Caine and others in Trump’s cabinet privately view that outcome as unlikely and instead have sought to develop other options that fit within the president’s own parameters, according to multiple sources familiar with recent discussions.Nearly six months into a conflict which opened with weeks of claims that Iran’s military capabilities had been decimated, and which remains defined by the president’s pledge of preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, it is highly significant that Trump’s most senior general is privately arguing there is no easy military solution to end a war the president chose to enter.In response to CNN’s request for comment on this story, Caine’s spokesperson Joseph Holstead said: “We do not discuss the Chairman’s confidential conversations with the President, the Secretary, or other senior leaders, nor do we comment on anonymous, agenda-driven characterizations of those conversations by sources who were not privy to them.”CNN asked the White House for comment and the State Department and CIA declined to comment.‘Airpower has its limits’The war has reached a point where many of Trump’s top national security officials, bolstered by military doctrine, assessments from the US intelligence community and common sense, believe what Caine himself told lawmakers during a public hearing late last month — “airpower has its limits.”For those reasons, Caine and other Trump officials were wary of the latest plan late in July to launch new, more aggressive strikes due to concerns about the likely fallout that could come from escalating the conflict, even as the president appeared ready to initially greenlight what he described as a “massive” operation, one of the sources said, declining to elaborate on the operational details.“The only ones in favor of the operation were elements of CENTCOM,” the source added, noting Israel also broadly supported an operation to escalate the conflict.Trump ultimately decided to back off after talking with Middle East allies, who told him they were afraid of Iranian retaliation, specifically retaliatory attacks on their energy infrastructure, a senior administration official told CNN, adding that the president is not taking the planned strikes off the table for a future date.But dwindling US stockpiles of key munitions were also a factor, CNN has reported, as multiple sources said it was a concern that has been raised not only by Caine but also by Gulf officials, who have recently conveyed to administration officials how a shortage of high-end American air defense systems could impact their ability to ward off potential Iranian retaliation if Trump decides to escalate the conflict.Trump has repeatedly threatened to strike Iran’s energy infrastructure, a move sources said is unlikely to force Iran to capitulate — as Caine himself has alluded to publicly — and almost certainly prompt retaliatory attacks targeting energy infrastructure of Gulf countries. Doing so would also likely further alienate the Iranian population, rather than fuel blame toward the regime, several sources said.Trump has also considered bombing bridges, but doing so is similarly unlikely to yield productive results, per a second source. “There really isn’t much else to hit since it is whack-a-mole with drone and missile sites. Bombing powerplants would be publicly a lot more significant.”Handling Trump carefullyBut while Caine has raised concerns, he has also been mindful of preserving his relationship with Trump and been careful in how he conveys the potential downsides of military options when presenting them directly to the president, the sources said.He has worked hard in his time as chairman to make sure he has Trump’s ear, at one point even trying to secure an office at the White House so he could brief the president more regularly and have a highly secure space to work from when he’s there, according to people familiar with the matter.Caine was “doing his job” by recently raising potential downsides of military options for escalating the conflict — including concerns about the already depleted US munitions stockpile — during a White House meeting with Trump and other top officials late last month, two sources familiar with the discussion said.But during the same discussion, Caine also made clear to the president that if he wanted to go forward with those operations, “we could absolutely wreck them,” one of the sources familiar with that recent White House meeting told CNN about the chairman’s message.Privately, however, Caine has been more direct in acknowledging the limits of air power and reiterating his view that bombing alone is unlikely to achieve Trump’s stated objectives, at this stage of the war, according to a third source familiar with the matter.Some say Caine hasn’t been assertive enough with Trump. “He’s definitely pulling punches,” a source familiar with Caine’s interactions with Trump told CNN earlier this year, when comparing his White House conversations with his private discussions with military leaders about potentially launching the war.Caine appears to have become more vocal about the potential second and third order effects of potential US escalation in recent weeks. CNN previously reported that he specifically raised concerns about the depleted US munitions stockpile during at least two recent meetings with Trump where options for escalating were discussed.But at the same time, Caine has reiterated during those meetings that the US military can inflict massive damage on Iran if Trump ultimately decides to go forward with an operation that would escalate the war, according to a source familiar with one of those discussions.It’s part of Caine’s delicate balancing act, telling people privately that he wants to restore trust in his position as the country’s top general and in the military more broadly even as Trump has politicized both.Pre-war warnings about weapon stockpilesBefore the war began, Caine and other military leaders similarly warned Trump that a protracted military campaign could impact US weapons stockpiles — particularly those that support Israel and Ukraine. But now, senior US military commanders believe the munitions stockpile is “dangerously low,” a source previously told CNN, and Trump has become increasingly frustrated by how the issue appears to undermine his ability to credibly project strength in negotiations with Iran.Caine has raised concerns about the dwindling US munitions stockpile during at least two recent meetings with Trump where potential options for escalating the conflict were discussed, CNN has reported. Trump, meanwhile, appears more frustrated by the fact that the war’s impact of US munitions has been reported publicly — airing those grievances during a meeting with his Cabinet at Camp David last week.The munitions shortage is also one reason the Pentagon and US Central Command have recently begun to reevaluate the US’ military strategy, CNN has reported. For example, a senior military official at CENTCOM recently sent a crowdsourcing email seeking new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran, sources previously told CNN.While soliciting fresh ideas is not necessarily a bad idea, particularly given the current state of the war, sources noted that doing so six months after the war started amounts to tacit acknowledgment things are not going well.“It is rough when you are looking at those options in the middle of the war instead of before it starts,” one of the sources familiar with the planning discussions said.As chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Caine is responsible for drafting military options for striking Iran, but even in pre-war meetings at the Pentagon with other senior officials, Trump’s top general was vocal about the potential downsides of launching a major operation — even then raising concerns about the scale, complexity and potential for US casualties of such a mission, according to sources familiar with his advice.But at the same time, Trump specifically invoked Caine by name in a pre-war post claiming his top military adviser believed the now-months long conflict with Iran “will be something easily won.”As the war approaches the six-month mark, tempered criticism about Caine’s approach to the job is being revived and questions about his relative lack of experience managing an extended conflict are beginning to emerge.“He is out of his depth on this one,” a source familiar with how Caine is navigating the current crisis — both strategically and in managing his relationship with Trump.But Caine is not an outlier, many within the administration as well as outside analysts agree that the only way to decisively defeat Iran would be through a major operation involving ground troops, a commitment that could potentially cost thousands of American lives. The Pentagon considers all scenarios, so those plans exist, but as of now no one in the administration is arguing for such drastic action.Therefore, as Caine and others continue to make sure Trump is aware that less drastic escalatory military actions could lead to negative results, the focus is on finding the off-ramp that offers the president a “symbolic” win — at minimum — he can try to sell to the American people without preventing a potential diplomatic breakthrough, starting with an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.CNN’s Haley Britzky and Alayna Treene contributed reporting.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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