21 May 2006

Grand old lady

Sometimes visible from our hotel depending on which room we get to stay in, is the Empire State Building.
Once again the tallest building in Manhattan after 9/11, the grand old lady recently turned 75.

Nowadays, most of the offices are empty. The queues of visitors, wanting to get up onto the outside observation deck, take up lots of space as they snake their way through the building’s interior before finally managing the final elevator ride to the top.

Incredibly, it only took 13 months to complete the construction of the Empire State.

Sort of puts the Dubai construction deadlines into perspective doesn’t it? I doubt that there would be any buildings being constructed in Dubai that would go up in 13 months and be expected to last over 75 years!

1 comments:

BuJ said...

remember also in those days 13 months was more than enough because there was little or no legislation for health and safety and standards were almost non existent!

u just got down and built the thing!

check out the uk.. the terminal 5 for heathrow was proposed in the 1980s, then got planning permission in the 1990s, then started on site a few yrs ago,, and it's still a building site today...

it's not that big.. probably same size as dubai's sheikh rashid terminal..