Technology and Culture

The Empire State Building, at 1,252 feet, was the world’s tallest skyscraper from 1931 to 1971. It was started on 23 September 1929 and was ready for occupancy on 1 May 1931 with 2.1 million square feet of rentable space. The architects were Shreve, Lamb and Harmon. That is the story recounted by many of the blurbs one can read about the building. But most of the credit—and there is a lot of credit—goes to Starrett Brothers and Eken, the general contractors. Building the Empire State tells the story of that contract: demolition of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel; clearing of the site; digging and setting of the foundations and grillages; erection of 57,000 tons of steel framework, which had to be fabricated and milled to precise specifications; pouring of 62,000 cubic yards of concrete; installation of mechanical systems and sixty-seven elevators in seven miles of shafts; and facade work—ten million common bricks were laid and sixty-four hundred windows were set. At peak activity, thirty-four hundred workers and nearly five hundred trucks went in and out of the site daily. The frame rose one story a day. “No comparable structure has since matched that rate of ascent” (p. 12). How did they do it?

The heart of this book is the construction notebook, “Notes of the Construction of the Empire State Building,” recently rediscovered in the files of RHR Construction Company, the successor to Starrett Brothers and Eken. It reproduces a manuscript typed on blue-lined graph paper that was collected in a three-ring binder. The seventy-seven page notebook and a [End Page 151] thirteen-page appendix give detailed figures on costs for materials, equipment, and labor. Scattered throughout the notebook are sixty-four black-and-white photographs with captions. All this shows how they did it.

Building the Empire State also contains two essays. One is by Carol Willis, an architectural historian and founder/director of the Skyscraper Museum, called “Building the Empire State.” The other, by structural engineer Donald Friedman, is titled “‘A Story a Day’: Engineering the Work.” Willis writes that there were two key reasons why this “incredible schedule” happened. She cites a “team-design approach that involved the collaboration of the architects, owners, builders, and engineers in planning and problem-solving; and the organizational genius of the general contractors, Starrett Brothers and Eken” (p. 12). I would add a third: the owners’ requirement that the building be completed by 1 May 1931, the then-annual commencing date for new leases. Thus the “need for speed” (p. 18). This was “construction management” in 1929, long before anyone had ever heard of the term, which didn’t appear widely until after World War II.

Friedman says the same thing: “The unrivaled fact about the Empire State is that it was completed, from its foundation to occupancy, in less than one year. That is an enviable construction speed for any large building, but incredible for such a tall building on a constrained site in the middle of congested midtown Manhattan. . . . Blaming modern safety requirements for a slower rate of construction today is grossly inaccurate. As described in the Notes, safety for both the laborers on the site and the public nearby was a prime concern of the builders, who took precautions similar to those later required by law” (p. 34). Friedman believes that the speed of the building had to do with cooperation, fast-track construction, and planning. “If the most lasting statistics of the Empire State are based on speed, their basis is careful planning” (p. 46). Even the daily movement of laborers was a concern. Starrett Brothers and Eken had five “well-run, inexpensive lunch counters” (p. 42) as the building went up, saving the laborers the bother of going off site. Many years before, Filippo Brunelleschi, building the dome of St. Peter’s (circa 1470), had the same idea—portable lunchrooms.

A last note: the Skyscraper Museum should republish William A...