How tall is the Empire State Building?

The Empire State Building is 381 m to its tip, or 443 m with the antenna

The Empire State Building at 350 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan is 381 m (1,250 ft) tall to its architectural top, the height the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) uses for rankings and the figure this site uses. Add the broadcast antenna on top of the spire and the total reaches 443.2 m (1,454 ft) to the tip. The building's own fact sheet quotes the larger figure, "including its spire and antenna".

The gap of 62 m comes from how skyscraper height is defined. Under CTBUH criteria, a spire or decorative crown counts as part of the building's architecture. Antennas, flagpoles and other equipment that can be added or taken away do not. The Empire State Building's Art Deco spire counts. The antenna mast fixed to it in the early 1950s doesn't.

The operator sometimes gives the 102nd floor as 1,250 ft (381 m), the same as the roof height. CTBUH records the observatory at 373.1 m. The difference comes from measuring to the floor level rather than to the top of the structure, and both figures appear in reputable sources.

The 1929–1931 race for the sky

The Empire State Building was born in a three-way contest for the world's tallest building. In 1929 a group led by the financier John J. Raskob and former New York governor Al Smith bought the site of the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Fifth Avenue. The architects Shreve, Lamb & Harmon went through about fifteen versions of the design, each adjusted to stay ahead of the competition.

The rivals were downtown's 40 Wall Street and, above all, the Chrysler Building. In October 1929 William Van Alen raised the Chrysler's secret stainless-steel spire, assembled inside its crown, and took the building to 319 m (1,046 ft), past both 40 Wall Street and Paris's Eiffel Tower. The Empire State team answered by raising their planned roof height and adding a tall metal crown, giving the final 381 m. When the structural steel topped out in September 1930, it already stood about 319 m, and the spire took it well beyond the Chrysler.

410 days

The construction speed is still famous. The building went from groundbreaking to opening in about 410 days, opening on 1 May 1931. Steel frames came from the mills to the site in a tightly scheduled sequence, and floors were completed at a pace few projects have matched since. The operator's materials list gives some sense of the scale: about 10 million bricks, around 200,000 cubic feet of Indiana limestone and granite, 730 tons of aluminum and stainless steel, and a total weight of some 365,000 tons.

The timing was terrible commercially. The building opened early in the Great Depression, and much of its office space sat empty for years. The owners didn't turn a profit until the early 1950s.

The spire that was meant to be a dock for airships

The spire wasn't designed only for height. The developers promoted it as a mooring mast for dirigibles, where passengers would step from airships onto a gangway at the top of the building. Strong, unpredictable winds at 381 m made the idea unworkable, and it was dropped. The spire's lasting role came with broadcasting. A 68 m (222 ft) antenna was mounted on top between 1950 and 1953, taking the tip to its present height and making the building a main transmitter site for New York television and radio.

The antenna also makes the building a lightning rod. The operator says it is struck about 25 times a year, without harm to the structure or the people inside.

Records held, lost and regained

The Empire State Building was the world's tallest building for nearly four decades, from 1931 until the World Trade Center's North Tower topped out in December 1970. No skyscraper had held the title that long before.

It then became New York's second-tallest building, and in 1973 Chicago's Sears Tower passed both. After the destruction of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, it was once again the tallest building in New York, a role it held until One World Trade Center passed it in 2012. CTBUH now ranks it 58th in the world and eighth in New York City.

Comparing the Empire State Building with other landmarks

The 381 m roof makes a good yardstick, which is why the building is so often used as a unit of height. Here is how it compares with other structures in this site's landmark data. You can stack them side by side in the 3D height comparison tool.

Two neat coincidences show up. The Willis Tower's architectural height, 442.3 m, is almost exactly the Empire State Building's height to its antenna tip, 443.2 m. And the Chrysler Building's spire, 319 m, matches the Empire State's own topped-out steel frame in September 1930, before its crown went on.

Anatomy of the top: from the 86th floor to the antenna tip

Most of the famous silhouette is in the upper 120 m or so, where the setbacks give way to the crown, spire and mast. Reading it from the bottom up explains why there are several different "heights" for the building.

The main office floors end around the 86th floor. Above it, the crown and spire rise about 61 m to the architectural top. That section was designed as the airship mooring mast, which is why it contains the narrow observatory at the 102nd floor rather than offices. The 102nd-floor windows sit just under 8 m below the top of the spire.

The broadcast antenna then adds the final 62 m. It is roughly as tall as a 20-story building on its own, yet under CTBUH criteria none of it counts toward the building's official height, because it is equipment. The 443.2 m tip figure is the one CTBUH and the operator both use today, and it is the number to use when you compare the Empire State Building with other structures measured to their tips, such as the Eiffel Tower's 330 m antenna height or the Twin Towers' North Tower at about 527–530 m with its mast.

This layered top also explains a common mix-up. Some lists compare the Empire State Building's 443 m antenna height with other buildings' architectural heights, which makes it look taller than towers that actually overtop its roof. When both are measured the same way, roof against roof or tip against tip, the comparisons in the table above come out right.

The 1945 crash

On the foggy morning of 28 July 1945, a US Army B-25 Mitchell bomber flying over Manhattan struck the north side of the building between the 79th and 80th floors. Fourteen people were killed. One engine passed right through the building and landed on a nearby roof. Debris fell down an elevator shaft, and an elevator operator, Betty Lou Oliver, survived a fall of about 75 stories in her car, still listed as the longest survived elevator fall. The steel frame held, and many floors reopened within two days. It remains one of the most cited examples of how sturdy the building's riveted steel structure is.

Visiting: three observatories at three heights

The building has three public observation levels:

• 80th floor: the newest level, opened in December 2019 as part of the observatory redesign.
• 86th floor, about 320 m (1,050 ft): the classic open-air deck that wraps around the building, seen in countless films. It has been fenced since 1947.
• 102nd floor, about 373 m (1,224 ft): a glass-enclosed observatory reopened in October 2019, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a glass elevator ride up from the 86th floor.

The operator says visitors can see six states on a clear day and that more than 2.5 million people visit each year. Other sources put annual visitors near four million. Prices and ticket types vary, so check the operator's website before you go.

Climbing it: the Empire State Building Run-Up

For people who want to feel the height, the annual Run-Up sends runners up 1,576 steps to the 86th floor, a vertical gain of about 320 m. The record, set by Paul Crake in 2003, is 9 minutes 33 seconds, a climbing rate of about 2,000 m per hour. The full count from the street to the 102nd floor is 1,860 steps, according to the operator. That works out to roughly 20 cm of rise per step on average over 373 m, a little steeper than an ordinary home staircase.

The building at human scale

A few conversions help make 381 m concrete. A 6-foot (183 cm) person would need to be stacked about 208 times to reach the top of the spire. The building has 6,514 windows and 73 elevators, and its 102 floors average about 3.7 m from floor to floor. Its total volume, according to the operator, could fill about 370 Olympic swimming pools. For more of New York's towers and the world's tallest buildings, see the landmarks hub.