John Tauranac tells the intricate story of one of our premier icons, blending architectural history with the human and technological drama of how the skyscraper was created.

The idea for the Empire State Building emerged from the culture and politics of New York in the early twentieth century, as Democratic presidential candidate Al Smith spearheaded plans to erect the world's tallest skyscraper in the heart of Manhattan.

Drawing on extensive archives, Tauranac contextualizes the building within the history of skyscrapers, showing how technological developments allowed the structure to rise as high as it did, and how the builders brain-stormed to solve the specific problems they encountered. The construction of the Empire State Building became one of the great sights of the city, watched as eagerly as a tight pennant race between the Dodgers and the Giants.

1. Planned during the boom of the 1920s, the skyscraper took less than a year to erect - at an astonishing rate of four and a half floors per week - only to open for business during the Depression. Its resulting low occupancy earned it the sobriquet "The Empty State Building," and the structure teetered on the brink of bankruptcy until World War II. After the war, its image became a familiar one throughout the country - on T-shirts and theater programs, in television commercials and feature films.