Empire State Observatories and Exhibitions

In the heart of Manhattan, the Empire State Building is the most famous of all buildings, especially for people outside the city. It is the face of New York, and its central location makes it easily accessible to visitors who come to see it from around the world and experience the 86th Floor Empire State Building.

The Empire State Building story that has made this monument so famous begins with the history of the place. Before the Empire State Building, quite a few hotels opened on-site for the ‘elegant social life’ of upper-class New York citizens. However, by 1929, the plans for the building that we now see today were announced to the citizens, and the construction was completed and opened officially on May 1, 1931, with the visitors (which included the President of the United States) having a luncheon on the 86th Floor Empire State Building.

Oddly enough, the original designs had the spire of the building above the Empire State Building observation deck 102 floor, which was planned to be an airship docking site. Still, the factors of wind updrafts and other impracticalities made it impossible. However, that didn’t make it entirely useless, because along with the 86th and 102nd floors being opened to the public via tickets as observatories – some of the most famous in the world – the fame of the building itself was cemented with the Empire State Building and King Kong story; in 1933, a stop motion movie where King Kong climbed the Empire State Building was released, making the building even more famous.

Regardless, the observatories themselves offer quite the perfect top of the Empire State Building view from the various observation decks where the 86th floor has both an outdoor, open-air viewing area and an enclosed gallery, and the 102nd floor has an enclosed viewing area that is smaller than the 86th but offers a different perspective and feels. The 80th-floor observatory opened in 2019 and boasts several exhibitions that make the visit more interesting. There is a mural, for example, of the skyline, as drawn by Stephen Wiltshire, an interactive multimedia museum, and other hands-on exhibitions about the building’s history spanning 10,000 sq. ft. These exhibits include “The Site in the 1920s”, “Construction,” “Otis Elevators,” and much more in the representation of the story that defines and remakes the Empire State Building into more than a building – it makes it into a piece of history.