A different New York comes alive at night than the daytime city, one with its own magic and enchantment.
Whoever wrote the caption on the back of this 1940s postcard understood this well.
“Spectacular sight as this is typical of all New York which is truly a fairyland when night begins to descend,” the caption reads.
“The Empire State Building, guardian of the skyscrapers, keeps faithful watch over her charges throughout the night.”
There was just the plain-old Empire Building, an 1898 neoclassical office tower at 71 Broadway at Rector Street.
Impressive enough to warrant is own postcard, it held the distinction of being one of the city’s first steel-framed skyscrapers and was praised for its ornate beauty.
[One critic, however, did complain that it had a “grotesque resemblance to a waffle iron” according to this 1996 report by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.]
For 33 years, it was the only skyscraper with Empire in its name. Then in 1931 came the Empire State Building—82 stories taller and an instant icon.
The humbled Empire Building stuck it out until 1997, when it was converted to apartments.
Since 1981 it’s been owned by Met Life (though the Met Life sign didn’t go up until 1991)—a 60-story skyscraper behind Grand Central Station. But in 1963 it opened as the Pan Am Building, becoming sort of a symbol of post–World War II, jet-age New York City.
Too bad the Pan Am Building lacked the beauty and grace of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings and was never especially beloved by New Yorkers.
But it did have one distinct amenity: a helipad on the roof. A company called New York Airways regularly offered seven-minute copter service to JFK and LaGuardia Airports.
The copter shuttle operated in the 1960s and then started up again in 1977—until one helicopter’s broken landing gear caused another copter to tip over and kill four passengers waiting to board. A fifth person, a pedestrian, died when the rotor blade fell off the roof and tumbled all the way down to 43rd Street.
The Empire State Building was not supposed to be just the tallest skyscraper in the world; its planners also wanted it to have a dirigible docking station at the very top.
It was the late 1920s, and the grand new world of aviation was upon us. With that in mind, the idea was to have a dirigible dock at the building’s spire. Passengers would somehow disembark at the 102nd floor, where an elevator would whisk them down to the street.
But building planners forgot to factor in wind. After the Empire State Building opened in 1931, one dirigible did try to land there to test it out; it didn’t work, and the whole slightly ludicrous idea was scrapped. The spire became the dock for a broadcast tower in 1953.
This postcard is part of the Walker Evans collection currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This postcard depicts Gotham as kind of a florescent, candy-colored skyscraper city. Were there ever pink, yellow, and orange spotlights coming out of Queens—maybe for the World’s Fair?
Ephemeral New York 