#21 The Empire State Building

 May 13, 2023

Paying a lot of money to pack in an elevator with umpteen random strangers and zooming to the top of  this iconic building was never on any kind of bucket list.  But seriously, if this would be my one and only trip to NYC, it would practically be a crime not to.  And with that thinking, why stop at the 86th floor?  So I ponied up the required $84 to go to the 102nd floor.

But first, the museum.  And a good thing too, as I discovered myself to possess precious little knowledge about this skyscraper, beyond that it was really tall.  

The museum had great multimedia displays depicting the construction.  The building was competed in 1931 in an amazingly short time.  Only one year and forty-five days from start to finish. 

With the obvious lack of safety equipment, as well as the speed of construction, it not surprising that five men died while on the job.  However, that's out of 3,400 people who worked on it.

Much of the museum was dedicated to all of the movies that have featured The Empire State building.  King Kong likely being the most well known.  My favorite is An Affair to Remember.

When it was my time to zoom up 86 floors to the first observation deck, I piled in the elevator with the prescribed number of people.  I would have fought to push the button, but alas, there was a uniformed attendant to do the honors.

It was a little cloudy, and some haze on the horizon, but there was still a lot to see.  Since I don't know the city, it was probable less interesting to me than to someone who may have tried to see their grandma's house or place of work.  This level was open-air, with a kind of steel rod cage encircling it.

Since I am rather inept at selfies, I asked a gregarious looking young man to take my picture.  He did.  He took lots.  Then afterwards he came and found me and wanted to introduce me to some friend of his.  He referred to me as his friend Amy.  I'm guessing he just met them as well. 

After I'd made the full circle around and taken a zillion pictures, I found the elevator for the 102nd floor.  This elevator, that would take us up the remaining sixteen floors, was all glass-sided, so we could see the city as we shot skyward. 

The observatory at this level was a glass enclosure so on a cold, windy day it would be the preferred level for viewing.  Obviously when taking pictures you have to deal with the reflections.  The views, however, are roughly the same, but from a slightly different angle.

Once back to the lower level, I wandered through the gift shop, purchasing a Christmas ornament for the memory.  Then down more level there was a Walgreens store, where I bought some snacks for my room.