title: 6ix9ine

text: Hernandez has maintained commercial success since his release from prison; his single "Gooba" debuted and peaked at number three in the US and "Trollz", his third collaboration with Minaj, debuted at number one in the country. His second album, "TattleTales" (2020), debuted at number four on the US "Billboard" 200. However, several major figures in the hip hop industry have condemned or ostracized Hernandez for his role as a witness for the prosecution in the Nine Trey Gangsters trial.


title: 6ix9ine

text: Daniel Hernandez was born on May 8, 1996, in Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York City to Natividad Perez-Hernandez, a factory worker and house cleaner from Atlixco, Puebla Mexico, and Daniel Hernandez Sr. from Río Piedras, Puerto Rico. His mother came to the U.S. in 1988 to seek a better life and opportunities. Hernandez played baseball and soccer throughout his youth and was assigned to a Major League Soccer team at 13 but his mother declined because she did not trust a stranger taking her son at a young age. Hernandez has his first name tattooed on the right side of his head. Hernandez and his older brother, Oscar Osiris Hernandez (born August 25, 1994), were raised in a church throughout their youth. Hernandez would sing during mass and was selected many times to read from the Bible; his favorite passage was Psalm 121. For elementary school, he attended Public School 59, for middle school, he attended Juan Morel Campos Secondary School and for high school, he attended Legacy High School. He left high school around the tenth grade.


title: 6ix9ine

text: Hernandez did not know his father until he was 9 years old and had only a brief relationship with him. Hernandez's mother told him he was dead, according to Hernandez's father. Hernandez's father had a heroin addiction and was in prison for five years for selling drugs. Hernandez's stepfather was shot dead steps away from the family home in 2010. After the murder of his stepfather, Hernandez's mother wasn't able to make enough money working to support her children. She applied for welfare and there were many nights Hernandez and his brother went to bed without dinner. Due to his mother's financial struggle, Hernandez and his brother wore used clothes and Hernandez had to share a bed with his mother. Emotionally disturbed by the death of his stepfather, Hernandez would not shower or eat to the point where he lost a lot of weight, he was given therapy and was hospitalized for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Hernandez also started to act out due to his stepfather's death and was eventually expelled from school in the 8th grade for bad behavior. Rather than continuing his education, he started working at various jobs such as being a busboy and a delivery boy at a grocery store to help his mother financially.


title: 6ix9ine

text: Hernandez first decided to rap in 2012 after meeting Peter "Righteous P" Rodgers, CEO of New York record label Hikari-Ultra, when he came into the vegan bodega Hernandez was working at in Bushwick, Brooklyn and asked if Hernandez rapped based on his appearance, stating that he thought he had the image of a rapper and suggested that he rap because of this, along with Hernandez' cadence.


title: 6ix9ine

text: Hernandez began releasing rap songs in 2014, starting with "69" in August 2014, "Pimpin", in September 2014 and both "Who The Fuck is You" and "4769" in October 2014, the latter of which was his first collaboration as a lead artist featuring two rappers from the Brooklyn collective Pro Era, J.A.B. and Dirty Sanchez. Over the next three years, he released multiple tracks and videos with titles such as "Scumlife", "Shinigami" (named after the Japanese death god Shinigami from "Death Note"), "Yokai" and "Hellsing Station", drawing attention for his aggressive rapping style and use of anime as music video visuals. Many of his early songs were released by FCK THEM, a music label based in Slovakia. He adopted the stage name "Tekashi69"; "Tekashi" references Japanese anime, which he was a fan of, while "69" references both the 69 sex position and the yin-yang symbol.


title: 6ix9ine

text: Gathering fame as an internet meme for his rainbow-dyed hair, extensive tattoos and rainbow-plated grills, he eventually became an associate of fellow New York rapper ZillaKami, the younger half-brother of Righteous P. They later feuded after Hernandez discovered Righteous P and ZillaKami were going to sign a record deal with Epic, in an attempt by ZillaKami to drop him due to a lack of control over Hernandez, alleged unpaid bail money, the surfacing of misconduct allegations against Hernandez, and a dispute over allegedly stolen instrumentals. Soon after Hernandez began working with Andrew Green a rapper known as TrifeDrew, again, who had previously worked with him on music videos to work on videos again along with music.


title: 6ix9ine

text: Hernandez rose to prominence on social media due to a July 2017 Instagram post that went viral on both Reddit and Twitter. Hernandez's commercial debut single "Gummo" was released on November 10, 2017 and eventually peaked at number 12 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. It was certified platinum by the RIAA on March 5, 2018. His next single, "Kooda", debuted at number 61 on the Hot 100 the week of December 23, 2017. On January 14, 2018, Hernandez released his third single, "Keke", with Fetty Wap and A Boogie wit da Hoodie, which also charted on the Hot 100.


title: 6ix9ine

text: Shortly afterward, Hernandez announced his debut mixtape, "Day69". The mixtape was released on February 23, 2018 and debuted at number 4 on the "Billboard" 200 album chart with 55,000 album-equivalent units, of which 20,000 were pure sales. According to Jon Caramanica of "The New York Times", the tape was an outgrowth of the "SoundCloud rap explosion" and was notable for its willingness to deviate from hip hop's prevailing sound. After the release of "Day69", two songs from the album, "Billy" and "Rondo" both debuted on the "Billboard" Hot 100, with "Billy" peaking at number 50 and "Rondo" at number 73.


title: 6ix9ine

text: In April 2018, Hernandez released "Gotti", a remix of a feature he did for artist Packman titled "Got it, Got it". The song's video was released on April 16, 2018 and involved footage of Hernandez donating bundles of $100 bills to poor citizens in the Dominican Republic. The song was added to "Day69" as a deluxe song and debuted at number 99 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 before dropping off the following week, making it his sixth consecutive Hot 100 entry.


title: 6ix9ine

text: Hernandez stirred up controversy in May 2018 when he was involved in a shooting with the entourage of fellow New York rapper Casanova as part of a feud; this led to Hernandez losing a $5 million headphone deal and being banned from the Barclays Center. After the shooting, Hernandez stopped releasing music for several months, before releasing "Tati", featuring DJ Spinking in June, which debuted at number 43 on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: 6ix9ine

text: In July 2018, Hernandez released his eighth single, "Fefe", featuring Nicki Minaj and Murda Beatz; the single debuted at number four on the "Billboard" Hot 100 before peaking at number three in its second week, marking Hernandez's highest entry on the chart and his first single to reach the top five of the Hot 100. "Fefe" was later certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. His subsequent singles, "Bebe" and "Stoopid", also reached the top 30 of the Hot 100.


title: 6ix9ine

text: In September 2018, Hernandez signed a publishing deal with LA-based music company Create Music Group.


title: 6ix9ine

text: In early October 2018, Hernandez was featured on the song "Aulos Reloaded" with French house DJ Vladimir Cauchemar and "Kick" with Danish singer Jimilian. On November 7, 2018, it was announced that his debut studio album, "Dummy Boy", was to be released on November 23, but on November 21, it was announced that the album would be postponed. The album was ultimately released without notice on November 27, on all streaming services. Despite generally negative critical reception, the album became his highest-charting, after debuting at number two on the "Billboard" 200 behind Travis Scott's "Astroworld". While in jail, 6ix9ine was featured on previous collaborator A Boogie wit da Hoodie's song "Swervin", peaking at number 27 on the Hot 100, off his sophomore album "Hoodie SZN". The song was released on December 21, 2018, alongside the album.


title: 6ix9ine

text: In October 2019, Hernandez signed a two-album contract for over $10 million with his label 10K Projects for one album in English and one album in Spanish.


title: 6ix9ine

text: In April 2020, Hernandez had to request permission from a judge to film a video in his backyard while in home confinement and was subsequently granted permission. On May 7, 2020, Hernandez announced he would be releasing a new single on May 8, 2020, marking his return to music and on his 24th birthday. The song, titled "Gooba", was released alongside a music video. According to "Pitchfork"'s Madison Bloom, the track includes references to COVID-19 ("They sick, been hot, way before coronavirus") and Hernandez's cooperation with federal prosecutors and testimony ("Tell me how I ratted, came home to a big bag"). Hernandez announced after several delays his next single "Trollz", a collaboration with Nicki Minaj, which was released on June 12, 2020. The song debuted at the top of the Hot 100, marking 6ix9ine's first number-one single. "Trollz" fell to number 34 in its second week, breaking the record for largest position drop from number one in the chart's history, however the record was broken again later that year by Taylor Swift with "Willow". A third single, "Yaya", was released on July 3, 2020. It debuted at number 99 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and dropped out of the charts the following week. A fourth single, "Punani", was released on August 2.


title: 6ix9ine

text: The songs are all included on his second studio album, "TattleTales", which was released on September 4, 2020. After the release of the album Hernandez lamented the treatment he received from music platforms Spotify and Apple Music with them not displaying that he had released a new album on the main pages of their store fronts and not including him in their playlists which are highly influential on the charts, with him explaining that he views this as the music industry using these platforms' influence to damage him as a result of him cooperating. In November 2020, Hernandez was profiled in a Hulu true crime documentary film, "". While archival footage of Hernandez is featured, he was not interviewed for the film.


title: 6ix9ine

text: On February 19, 2021, he returned with the track, "Zaza", notably throwing jabs at Lil Durk and Meek Mill, whom he has feuded with. The song debuted at number 90 on the Hot 100.


title: 6ix9ine

text: On April 15, 2022, he released the song "Giné", throwing jabs at Lil Durk again, as well as King Von. The song was also released in collaboration with Giné energy drink, for which 6ix9ine made a new drink with the company.


title: 6ix9ine

text: Hernandez's music is generally categorized as hip hop, or more specifically, scream rap, hardcore hip hop, SoundCloud rap, and punk rap, often incorporating elements of drill, heavy metal, hardcore punk, grime, crunk, trap music, and reggaeton. He cites influences including DMX, Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., and 50 Cent.


title: 6ix9ine

text: Hernandez can speak Spanish; he sang in Spanish on three tracks, "Bebe" and "Mala" with Puerto Rican rapper Anuel AA in 2018, then "Yaya" in 2020. Hernandez suffers from asthma.


title: 6ix9ine

text: Hernandez was raised as a Christian. In an interview with American radio personality Angie Martinez, he stated: "I pray a lot; I always thank God for good situations. Every time there's a good situation, there's a cell in my brain that says: 'Say thank you to God'. ... Before I blew up, for a year and a half—400 and something days—I literally prayed every day while walking my dog Titus. I would pray every day: God, please change my life ... God, please change my life; I'm a good kid. Please change my life. I got a baby; I can't even buy her Pampers ... please change my life, please change my life—and then 'Gummo' came and life changed. And then I was like damn, God is real. I knew if I prayed every day it would work because God is real. And my life has changed." On March 23, 2018, Hernandez conducted a radio interview on "The Breakfast Club", alongside Australian pastor Brian Houston. In this interview, the pastor held hands with Hernandez and prayed for him; asking God to help Hernandez make wise decisions and to bless his family.


title: 6ix9ine

text: At 18 years old, Hernandez conceived a daughter who was born October 29, 2015, with Sara Molina (born January 17, 1996). Hernandez has another daughter who was born November 19, 2018 with Marlayna M.


title: 6ix9ine

text: A few weeks before Hernandez headed to prison at the end of 2018, he began dating Jade, whose real name is Rachel Watley. She has Hernandez's face tattooed twice on her body.


title: 6ix9ine

text: On October 1, 2020, Hernandez was reportedly hospitalized after having an overdose from mixing two Hydroxycut diet pills with a McDonald's McCafé coffee. He has claimed that he came to weigh more than 200 lbs after leaving prison but has said that using the medication had helped him shed 30 lbs since he was released. His lawyer denies the overdose claim.


title: 6ix9ine

text: Hernandez was involved in a child sexual performance charge from 2015. In October 2015, Hernandez pled guilty to a felony count of use of a child in a sexual performance. He was charged with three counts of the offense after a February 2015 incident in which he had physical contact with a 13-year-old girl and later distributed videos of the incident online as part of a music video. Three videos are described in the criminal complaint against Hernandez. In the first, "the child engages in oral sexual intercourse with the separately charged defendant Taquan Anderson, while the defendant, Daniel Hernandez, stands behind the child making a thrusting motion with his pelvis and smacking her on her buttocks. The child is nude in the video." The other videos show the child sitting on Hernandez's lap while Anderson gropes her breasts and later sitting naked across the laps of Anderson and Hernandez.


title: 6ix9ine

text: In a November 2017 interview, Hernandez claimed to have had "no sexual contact" with the girl and denied knowing she was a minor. Hernandez also claimed to have been 17 at the time of the incident, though the birth date listed in the complaint against him and in his statement to the police shows he was 18.


title: 6ix9ine

text: Under his plea deal, Hernandez must obtain his GED, refrain from posting sexually explicit or violent images of women or children to social media and not commit another crime for two years, among other injunctions. If met, the plea deal will give Hernandez three years' probation and he will not have to register as a sex offender; if not, Hernandez could face up to three years in prison. In a January 2018 court hearing, it was revealed that Hernandez had failed his GED test, but had his sentencing postponed until April 10, 2018. The court date was later postponed, reportedly because the court did not have a copy of Hernandez's GED. Prior to his sexual misconduct charges, Hernandez served jail time as a minor for assault and the sale of heroin.


title: 6ix9ine

text: Due to his continuing legal problems in light of his plea bargain, the Manhattan district attorney's office announced Hernandez could face up to three years in prison and possible sex offender registration for his 2015 case, but he was instead sentenced to four years of probation starting in October 2018, with one clause being that he cannot utter the phrase "Treyway" in public as it was deemed to promote gang activity, as well as 1,000 hours of community service. On October 27, 2018, two members of Hernandez's entourage were involved in a shooting in Manhattan and were subsequently charged with gang assault.


title: 6ix9ine

text: On July 12, 2018, Hernandez was arrested in New York for an outstanding warrant related to an incident where he allegedly choked a 16-year-old in The Galleria shopping mall in Houston in January 2018. All charges were eventually dropped after the teenager decided not to take legal action.


title: 6ix9ine

text: In the early morning hours of July 22, 2018, Hernandez was kidnapped, beaten and robbed by three armed assailants in Brooklyn. He had finished shooting the music video for "FEFE" (featuring Nicki Minaj and Murda Beatz) when the assailants grabbed him outside his home and pistol-whipped him. The robbers eventually took over $750,000 in custom jewelry and approximately $35,000 in cash. Hernandez escaped from their vehicle and summoned police help via a stranger. He was taken to the hospital. In February 2019, Nine Trey Gangsters member Anthony "Harv" Ellison was indicted for the July kidnapping and assault. On October 3, Ellison was found guilty.


title: 6ix9ine

text: On June 2, 2018, Chief Keef was fired upon outside the W Hotel in New York City but not hit; no injuries resulted from the incident. Due to the ongoing feud, Hernandez was confirmed to be under investigation by the New York Police Department for possible involvement with the incident, despite being in Los Angeles at the time. In February 2019, Hernandez pled guilty to ordering the shooting of Chief Keef. Hernandez offered his associate Kintea "Kooda B" McKenzie $20,000 to shoot at Chief Keef.


title: 6ix9ine

text: On September 10, 2019, Hernandez admitted to years of domestic violence in a cooperation agreement. A section of Hernandez's cooperation agreement with the government, which had not previously been made public, listed a number of crimes that he committed and for which the government agreed not to prosecute him. On the list, explained Judge Paul Engelmayer, was that Hernandez "admits domestic violence from 2011 to November 2018." Accusations of domestic violence against Hernandez first came to light in early 2019, including a detailed "Daily Beast" article that featured testimony from the rapper's ex-girlfriend (and the mother of his daughter), Sara Molina, that he beat her over a period of seven years—a timeline that corresponds to Hernandez's own admission, though no names of victims were mentioned in court. Molina told the "Daily Beast" about numerous incidents of abuse, including one beating in Dubai that left her face so swollen that she says, "I could barely open my eyes."


title: 6ix9ine

text: Molina also told the "Daily Beast" that Hernandez boasted about being a sex addict. Meanwhile, Molina said Hernandez falsely accused her of sleeping with Kifano "Shotti" Jordan, his manager who reportedly recruited Hernandez to become a member of the violent Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods street gang. When Molina denied cheating on him, she says he punched her out of nowhere, driving "a hair extension into her scalp." "I was leaking blood," she said. "There was blood on the hotel pillowcases. He got scared." Molina told the "Daily Beast" that she didn't report the assaults to the police, though she provided the news outlet with photos she said were taken shortly after the attacks, showing bruises and cuts. She continued to detail that Hernandez proceeded "beating me for two hours straight," she claims "He punched me so hard in my right ear I thought I was deaf." Molina describes that Hernandez punched, kicked and choked her, leaving her with two black eyes and multiple bruises. She then went on to allege that he sexually assaulted her next morning, "He woke up, forced me to have sex with him," she said. "I cried." Molina described another incident that took place in April 2017, in which 6ix9ine beat her in a car in front of her daughter, then a year old, who started screaming and crying. Molina alleges that after she questioned Hernandez about a stripper he had been hanging out with, "He dragged me by my hair and slapped me in my face," which resulted in a black eye. Hernandez admitted physically abusing his ex-girlfriend again in an interview with "The New York Times" in 2020.


title: 6ix9ine

text: On November 16, 2018, Hernandez made his second appearance on "The Breakfast Club" radio show, in which he notably stated: "There's only one thing I fear in life. No, two things. I fear God and I fear the FBI." On November 18, 2018, Hernandez, his former faux-manager Kifano "Shotti" Jordan and three other associates were arrested. Hernandez was charged with federal RICO and firearms charges, including conspiracy to murder and armed robbery and faced up to life in prison. He was allegedly part of "a violent sect of the Bloods" known as the Nine Trey Gangsters. Hernandez's attorney, Lance Lazzaro, advocated for bail for his client on the condition that Hernandez surrender his passport, pay a little under $2 million for bail and be placed under house arrest, but the judge denied bail, keeping Hernandez in custody, surmising that he may still be a danger to the community even if those bail conditions were met. Hernandez's legal team planned to appeal that decision. He was held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn under general population before being moved to another facility due to security reasons, as Hernandez had multiple altercations with fellow prisoners, including those belonging to the Crips street gang.


title: 6ix9ine

text: On February 1, 2019, Hernandez pled guilty to nine charges. He was due to be sentenced on January 24, 2020 and faced a possible mandatory sentence of 47 years in prison. On February 16, a plea deal document revealed that the rapper could avoid jail time in exchange for his willingness to testify against fellow gang members in concurrent investigations. On December 18, 2019, Hernandez was given a sentence of 2 years after testifying against the Nine Trey Gang. Judge Paul Engelmayer gave Hernandez credit for helping prosecutors send several violent gang members to prison and 13 months time served.


title: 6ix9ine

text: On December 18, 2019, Hernandez's father showed up to his court hearing after not seeing him since he was 9 years old. Hernandez didn't notice his father in the room for the first half of the hearing. His father sat in one of the back rows of the courtroom and spent several minutes trying to get his son's attention. After Hernandez finally noticed his father was in the courtroom, he broke down in tears. His father told reporters he wants to repair his relationship with his son.


title: 6ix9ine

text: On March 22, 2020, while serving his time in prison, Hernandez requested to serve the remainder of his prison sentence at home stating he was at a higher risk of contracting the COVID-19 virus due to his pre-existing asthma condition. On April 1, 2020 "Rolling Stone" obtained a letter to the judge from United States Attorney Geoffrey Berman saying that the government does not object to the release of Hernandez early on home confinement. On Thursday, April 2, Hernandez's lawyer, Dawn Florio, confirmed with "XXL" magazine that the court decided to allow the rapper to be released from prison and into home confinement. He was originally set to be released on August 2, 2020. His home confinement ended on August 1, 2020.


title: 6ix9ine

text: On September 16, 2022, 6ix9ine's girlfriend Jade was reported to be one of the victims in Cardi's strip club brawl case. Also, it has been alleged that she had hit 6ix9ine with no contact order. In fact, Jade was reported to have been arrested at a Miami restaurant.


title: 6ix9ine

text: In April 2017, Hernandez and Trippie Redd released their first collaboration, "Poles1469" and in July 2017, they released another, "Owee." Later that year, upon seeing a post from a Twitter account claiming Hernandez was a pedophile following the release of images and information by fellow rapper and Hernandez's detractor ZillaKami, Trippie Redd denounced Hernandez, saying, "I'm sorry brozay (sic), 1400 don't promote pedophiles... If we give niggas clout, we give niggas clout. It was an accident." On November 11, 2017, following a series of barbs the two traded on social media, Redd was attacked in the lobby of a New York hotel and blamed Hernandez and his crew in an Instagram live video. Hernandez later insinuated his involvement in an Instagram live video, saying, "I don't know what's going on, but your chin is bruised up. You can't just be out here calling people gay, bro. Can't be supporting false accusations, you can't be ranting on Live talking about New York. Fuck these niggas talking about, New York this, New York that, like, you just can't do that bro. You should put some ice on that chin, it's bruised up. I feel bad bro... I just want you to be my friend again," before proceeding to sing the hook from "Poles1469". He was referencing a post by Trippie Redd that showed Hernandez holding hands with another man with a caption insinuating Hernandez was a homosexual.


title: 6ix9ine

text: In February 2018, Hernandez was assaulted by several men outside a Los Angeles airport shortly after arguing with Trippie Redd on Instagram. Their feud continued to escalate with mutual Internet trolling. Hernandez later accused Trippie Redd over Instagram Live of having pedophilic sexual relations with fellow rapper Bhad Bhabie, who was a minor at the time. Trippie Redd denied the allegations and reiterated Hernandez's conviction for use of a child in sexual performance. Bhad Bhabie also took to Instagram Live to deny the claims, but admitted the two had kissed in the past, saying, "We kissed but it wasn't that serious and he was 17 at the time." However, this contradicts an account given by Trippie Redd to the late XXXTentacion regarding the nature of their relationship prior to it being publicly known. After the dissolution of Trippie Redd's relationship with his then-girlfriend Alexandria Laveglia, known professionally as Aylek$, Hernandez started posting videos of himself with her, hinting at sexual activity between the two. After Hernandez's November 2018 federal arrest on RICO charges, Trippie Redd mocked Hernandez's imprisonment in a video of him dancing to the tune of Akon's 2004 hit single "Locked Up", mimicking a jail scenario.


title: 6ix9ine

text: Throughout 2018, Hernandez was involved in feuds with a number of Chicago drill artists from the GloGang collective, including Chief Keef, Lil Reese and Tadoe (Chief Keef's cousin), stemming from domestic abuse and relationship issues relating to fellow rapper Cuban Doll, who was in a relationship with Tadoe but also friendly with Hernandez. The two continued to feud on social media, with Hernandez posting a video of his semi-romantic vacation to Hawaii with Cuban Doll to Instagram, and driving up to Chief Keef's old neighborhood and taunting him, as well as contacting Aereon Clark, known professionally as Slim Danger, the mother of one of Chief Keef's sons, and recording himself buying her designer clothes and verbally taunting him and later receiving fellatio from her. On May 8, 2018, Trippie Redd previewed the song "I Kill People" on Instagram, featuring Chief Keef and Tadoe, which was aimed as a diss toward Hernandez and Cuban Doll.


title: 6ix9ine

text: In May 2020, 6ix9ine accused singers Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande of cheating and buying their way to number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100, after their song "Stuck with U" debuted at number one while his comeback single, "Gooba", debuted at number three for the week ending May 23, 2020. He also accused "Billboard" of chart manipulation. In an Instagram post, 6ix9ine alleged that Grande and Bieber were using "six credit cards" to purchase 30,000 copies of their song at the last minute. Both Grande and Bieber denied the allegations against them, as well as addressing 6ix9ine's claims of using "six credit cards", stating that their fans are the ones who bought the songs and explaining that no more than four copies could be purchased. Bieber would address 6ix9ine's claims of that his streams didn't count, stating that "he (6ix9ine) is counting his global streams and this is a domestic chart so only domestic streams count".


title: 6ix9ine

text: "Billboard" also commented on how they conducted that week's charts, as well as commenting that the forecast rankings that 6ix9ine had prior to the reveal was false, stating that they do not distribute any of their rankings to labels, management, or artists.


title: 6ix9ine

text: In a later interview with "The New York Times" asking him if he inflates his streams "through bots or pre-roll ads or dirty marketing tactics", Hernandez stated:


title: 6ix9ine

text: Since his early prison release in April 2020, due to COVID-19 concerns, 6ix9ine has been engaged in a number of feuds, with among others, Meek Mill, 50 Cent, Anuel AA, YG, Rich the Kid, as well as Future—the latter notably involving 6ix9ine mocking Future's parental characteristics and Future going on a Twitter tirade against 6ix9ine.


title: 6ix9ine

text: Between August and September 2020, 6ix9ine was embroiled in a feud with rappers Lil Durk and Lil Reese, who called the rapper out for snitching against his former associates. 6ix9ine reacted to Lil Durk who claimed 6ix9ine's record label tried to pay him $3 million to continue their dispute. Rapper Lil Tjay made similar claims.


title: 6ix9ine

text: In March 2018, Hernandez visited the Dominican Republic to shoot a music video. While there, Hernandez handed out $100 bills to residents in the area. In the midst of his feud with Chief Keef on June 12, 2018, Hernandez visited Chicago's South Side and gave food and cash handouts to local residents. On July 24, 2018, Hernandez announced that a percentage of proceeds from sales of his Nicki Minaj-assisted hit single "Fefe" would be donated to various youth programs in New York. A portion of the proceeds from their 2020 single, "Trollz", was donated to The Bail Project to support people arrested during the George Floyd protests. On October 22, 2018, Hernandez met and spent the day with Tati, an eight-year-old Brooklyn girl terminally ill with brain cancer whose wish was to meet him. Hernandez took her out for a shopping spree.


title: 6ix9ine

text: Hernandez has made a significant monetary contribution for the Cristian Rivera Foundation, a non-profit organization founded to raise awareness and support clinical research for a very rare form of brain cancer found in children called diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG). According to the founder of the Organization John Rivera, Hernandez has been a supporter since November 2017 and offered to appear as a guest at the 10th Annual Gala on November 14, 2018. John Rivera also stated Hernandez has done many kind acts that have gone without media coverage or documentation.


title: 6ix9ine

text: On February 10, 2019, a video surfaced of Hernandez in an anti-violence against women commercial for Romantic Depot, a New York-based sex shop and lingerie store chain. The commercial video was released on Valentine's Day and went viral on TMZ and other celebrity news sites. The start of the video states "In no way does Romantic Depot support Tekashi 6IX9INE's past activities".


title: 6ix9ine

text: After returning home from prison, Hernandez intended on donating $200,000 from the $2 million he had earned from "Gooba" to No Kid Hungry. However, the director of strategic communications, Laura Washburn, declined the donation, saying "We are grateful for Mr. Hernandez's generous offer to donate to No Kid Hungry but we have informed his representatives that we have declined this donation...As a child-focused campaign, it is our policy to decline funding from donors whose activities do not align with our mission and values." Hernandez responded on Instagram, saying "@nokidhungry rather take food out the mouth of these innocent children I never seen something so cruel."


title: Dylan O'Brien

text: Dylan Rhodes O'Brien (born August 26, 1991) is an American actor. His first major role was Stiles Stilinski on the MTV supernatural drama "Teen Wolf" (2011–2017), where he was a series regular during all six seasons. He achieved further prominence for his lead role of Thomas in the "Maze Runner" science fiction film trilogy (2014–2018), which led to more film appearances. He played Deepwater Horizon explosion survivor Caleb Holloway in the disaster film "Deepwater Horizon" (2016), fictional counterterrorist Mitch Rapp in the action thriller "American Assassin" (2017), and title character in the "Transformers" installment "Bumblebee" (2018). He also played the lead in the adventure film "Love and Monsters" (2020).


title: Dylan O'Brien

text: O'Brien was born in New York City, the son of Lisa (née Rhodes), a former actress who ran an acting school, and Patrick O'Brien, a camera operator. He grew up in Springfield Township, New Jersey, until the age of twelve, when he and his family moved to Hermosa Beach, California. He is of Irish, Italian, English, and Spanish descent. After graduating from Mira Costa High School in 2009, he considered pursuing sports broadcasting and possibly working for the New York Mets.


title: Dylan O'Brien

text: At 14, O'Brien began posting original videos onto his YouTube channel. In his senior high school year, a local producer and director approached him about working for a web series. While working on the series, O'Brien met an actor who connected him with a manager. O'Brien subsequently changed his plans to attend Syracuse University as a sports broadcasting major, to pursue acting.


title: Dylan O'Brien

text: Before beginning his acting career, O'Brien produced, directed and starred in a number of short comedy films which he released through his personal YouTube channel. He was also the drummer for the independent rock band Slow Kids at Play.


title: Dylan O'Brien

text: O'Brien's acting break came when he landed one of the main roles in MTV's "Teen Wolf", a series loosely based on the 1985 film. He was intended to play Scott, but after reading the script, he wanted to audition for the part of Stiles instead. After four auditions, he was cast, and started playing the role in 2010.


title: Dylan O'Brien

text: In 2011, O'Brien was introduced to audiences in the entirely improvised independent comedy film "High Road". The next year, he starred in the romantic comedy "The First Time".


title: Dylan O'Brien

text: In 2013, while on hiatus from "Teen Wolf," he co-starred in the comedy film "The Internship"; and that summer, filmed "The Maze Runner" (2014), playing the lead role of Thomas. Yahoo! Movies named him as one of the 15 Breakout Stars to Watch for in 2014. He reprised the role of Thomas in "", released on September 18, 2015.


title: Dylan O'Brien

text: In March 2016, O'Brien was seriously injured on set while filming a stunt for "". He was in a harness on top of a moving vehicle when he was unexpectedly pulled off the vehicle and hit by another vehicle. His injuries included facial fractures, a concussion, and brain trauma. He later said that the accident "'broke most of the right side'" of his face; he underwent reconstructive facial surgery. After months of recovery, he eventually began filming other projects, and his March 2017 return to "The Death Cure" set marked his complete return to health. The film premiered January 26, 2018.


title: Dylan O'Brien

text: In 2016, he appeared in the disaster thriller-drama "Deepwater Horizon", based on the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion. He starred in 2017's "American Assassin", an action-thriller where he played titular character Mitch Rapp; and voiced the CGI title character in the "Transformers" spin-off film "Bumblebee" in 2018.


title: Dylan O'Brien

text: In 2019, he guest-starred in the comedy sci-fi anthology series "Weird City". In 2020, he starred in the mystery thriller "Flashback" (filmed in 2018), and the post-apocalyptic road trip film "Love and Monsters".


title: Dylan O'Brien

text: In February 2021, he was cast in "The Outfit", for which filming finished in April 2021. In August 2021, he was cast in "Not Okay", for which filming finished in September 2021. Also in August, he was cast in "The Vanishings at Caddo Lake", originally reported by Discussing Film and later confirmed by Deadline Hollywood in October 2021. In October 2021, it was announced he would guest star in season 11 of "Curb Your Enthusiasm". On November 12, 2021, O'Brien starred opposite Sadie Sink in Taylor Swift's short film "". He was credited as a drummer on the track "Snow on the Beach" from Swift's tenth studio album, "Midnights" (2022).


title: Empire State Building

text: The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname of the state of New York. The building has a roof height of and stands a total of tall, including its antenna. The Empire State Building was the world's tallest building until the World Trade Center was constructed in 1970; following the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001, the Empire State Building was New York City's tallest building until it was surpassed in 2012. , the building is the seventh-tallest building in New York City, the ninth-tallest completed skyscraper in the United States, the 54th-tallest in the world, and the sixth-tallest freestanding structure in the Americas.


title: Empire State Building

text: The site of the Empire State Building, in Midtown South on the west side of Fifth Avenue between West 33rd and 34th Streets, was developed in 1893 as the Waldorf–Astoria Hotel. In 1929, Empire State Inc. acquired the site and devised plans for a skyscraper there. The design for the Empire State Building was changed fifteen times until it was ensured to be the world's tallest building. Construction started on March 17, 1930, and the building opened thirteen and a half months afterward on May 1, 1931. Despite favorable publicity related to the building's construction, because of the Great Depression and World War II, its owners did not make a profit until the early 1950s.


title: Empire State Building

text: The building's Art Deco architecture, height, and observation decks have made it a popular attraction. Around four million tourists from around the world annually visit the building's 86th- and 102nd-floor observatories; an additional indoor observatory on the 80th floor opened in 2019. The Empire State Building is an international cultural icon: it has been featured in more than 250 television series and films since the film "King Kong" was released in 1933. The building's size has become the global standard of reference to describe the height and length of other structures. A symbol of New York City, the building has been named as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. It was ranked first on the American Institute of Architects' List of America's Favorite Architecture in 2007. Additionally, the Empire State Building and its ground-floor interior were designated city landmarks by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1980, and were added to the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark in 1986.


title: Empire State Building

text: The Empire State Building is located on the west side of Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, between 33rd Street to the south and 34th Street to the north. Tenants enter the building through the Art Deco lobby located at 350 Fifth Avenue. Visitors to the observatories use an entrance at 20 West 34th Street; prior to August 2018, visitors entered through the Fifth Avenue lobby. Although physically located in South Midtown, a mixed residential and commercial area, the building is so large that it was assigned its own ZIP Code, 10118; , it is one of 43 buildings in New York City that have their own ZIP codes.


title: Empire State Building

text: The areas surrounding the Empire State Building are home to other major points of interest, including Macy's at Herald Square on Sixth Avenue and 34th Street, and Koreatown on 32nd Street between Madison and Sixth Avenues. To the east of the Empire State Building is Murray Hill, a neighborhood with a mix of residential, commercial, and entertainment activity. The block directly to the northeast contains the B. Altman and Company Building, which houses the City University of New York's Graduate Center, while the Demarest Building is directly across Fifth Avenue to the east. The nearest New York City Subway stations are 34th Street–Herald Square, one block west, and 33rd Street at Park Avenue, two blocks east; there is also a PATH station at 33rd Street and Sixth Avenue.


title: Empire State Building

text: The Empire State Building was designed by Shreve, Lamb and Harmon in the Art Deco style. The Empire State Building is tall to its 102nd floor, or including its pinnacle. It was the first building in the world to be more than 100 stories tall, though only the lowest 86 stories are usable. The first through 85th floors contain of commercial and office space, while the 86th story contains an observatory. The remaining 16 stories are part of the spire, which is capped by an observatory on the 102nd floor; the spire does not contain any intermediate levels and is used mostly for mechanical purposes. Atop the 102nd story is the pinnacle, much of which is covered by broadcast antennas, and surmounted with a lightning rod.


title: Empire State Building

text: The building has been named one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The building and its street floor interior are designated landmarks of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, and confirmed by the New York City Board of Estimate. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1986. In 2007, it was first on the AIA's List of America's Favorite Architecture.


title: Empire State Building

text: The Empire State Building has a symmetrical massing because of its large lot and relatively short base. Its articulation consists of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column, namely a base, shaft, and capital. The five-story base occupies the entire lot, while the 81-story shaft above it is set back sharply from the base. The setback above the 5th story is deep on all sides. There are smaller setbacks on the upper stories, allowing sunlight to illuminate the interiors of the top floors while also positioning these floors away from the noisy streets below. The setbacks are located at the 21st, 25th, 30th, 72nd, 81st, and 85th stories. The setbacks correspond to the tops of elevator shafts, allowing interior spaces to be at most deep (see ).


title: Empire State Building

text: The setbacks were mandated by the 1916 Zoning Resolution, which was intended to allow sunlight to reach the streets as well. Normally, a building of the Empire State's dimensions would be permitted to build up to 12 stories on the Fifth Avenue side, and up to 17 stories on the 33rd/34th Streets side, before it would have to utilize setbacks. However, with the largest setback being located above the base, the tower stories could contain a uniform shape. According to architectural writer Robert A. M. Stern, the building's form contrasted with the nearly contemporary, similarly designed 500 Fifth Avenue eight blocks north, which had an asymmetrical massing on a smaller lot.


title: Empire State Building

text: The Empire State Building's Art Deco design is typical of pre–World War II architecture in New York City. The facade is clad in Indiana limestone panels sourced from the Empire Mill in Sanders, Indiana, which give the building its signature blonde color. According to official fact sheets, the facade uses of limestone and granite, ten million bricks, and of aluminum and stainless steel. The building also contains 6,514 windows. The decorative features on the facade are largely geometric, in contrast with earlier buildings, whose decorations often were intended to represent a specific narrative.


title: Empire State Building

text: The main entrance, composed of three sets of metal doors, is at the center of the facade's Fifth Avenue elevation, flanked by molded piers that are topped with eagles. Above the main entrance is a transom, a triple-height transom window with geometric patterns, and the golden letters "Empire State" above the fifth-floor windows. There are two entrances each on 33rd and 34th Streets, with modernistic, stainless steel canopies projecting from the entrances on 33rd and 34th Streets there. Above the secondary entrances are triple windows, less elaborate in design than those on Fifth Avenue.


title: Empire State Building

text: The storefronts on the first floor contain aluminum-framed doors and windows within a black granite cladding. The second through fourth stories consist of windows alternating with wide stone piers and narrower stone mullions. The fifth story contains windows alternating with wide and narrow mullions, and is topped by a horizontal stone sill.


title: Empire State Building

text: The facade of the tower stories is split into several vertical bays on each side, with windows projecting slightly from the limestone cladding. The bays are arranged into sets of one, two, or three windows on each floor. The bays are separated by alternating narrow and wide piers, the inclusion of which may have been influenced by the design of the contemporary Daily News Building. The windows in each bay are separated by vertical nickel-chrome steel mullions and connected by horizontal aluminum spandrels between each floor. The windows are placed within stainless-steel frames, which eliminated the need to saved money by removing the need to apply a stone finish around the windows. In addition, the use of aluminum spandrels obviated the need for cross-bonding, which would have been required if stone had been used instead.


title: Empire State Building

text: The building was originally equipped with white searchlights at the top. They were first used in November 1932 when they lit up to signal Roosevelt's victory over Hoover in the presidential election of that year. These were later swapped for four "Freedom Lights" in 1956. In February 1964, flood lights were added on the 72nd floor to illuminate the top of the building at night so that the building could be seen from the World Fair later that year. The lights were shut off from November 1973 to July 1974 because of the energy crisis at the time. In 1976, the businessman Douglas Leigh suggested that Wien and Helmsley install 204 metal-halide lights, which were four times as bright as the 1,000 incandescent lights they were to replace. New red, white, and blue metal-halide lights were installed in time for the country's bicentennial that July. After the bicentennial, Helmsley retained the new lights due to the reduced maintenance cost, about $116 a year.


title: Empire State Building

text: Since October 12, 1977, the spire has been lit in colors chosen to match seasonal events and holidays. Organizations are allowed to make requests through the building's website. The building is also lit in the colors of New York-based sports teams on nights when they host games: for example, orange, blue, and white for the New York Knicks; red, white, and blue for the New York Rangers. The spire can also be lit to commemorate events including disasters, anniversaries, or deaths, as well as for celebrations such as Pride and Halloween. In 1998, the building was lit in blue after the death of singer Frank Sinatra, who was nicknamed "Ol' Blue Eyes".


title: Empire State Building

text: The structure was lit in red, white, and blue for several months after the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. On January 13, 2012, the building was lit in red, orange, and yellow to honor the 60th anniversary of NBC program "The Today Show". After retired basketball player Kobe Bryant's January 2020 death, the building was lit in purple and gold, signifying the colors of his former team, the Los Angeles Lakers.


title: Empire State Building

text: In 2012, the building's four hundred metal halide lamps and floodlights were replaced with 1,200 LED fixtures, increasing the available colors from nine to over 16 million. The computer-controlled system allows the building to be illuminated in ways that were unable to be done previously with plastic gels. For instance, CNN used the top of the Empire State Building as a scoreboard during the 2012 United States presidential election, using red and blue lights to represent Republican and Democratic electoral votes respectively. Also, on November 26, 2012, the building had its first synchronized light show, using music from recording artist Alicia Keys. Artists such as Eminem and OneRepublic have been featured in later shows, including the building's annual Holiday Music-to-Lights Show. The building's owners adhere to strict standards in using the lights; for instance, they do not use the lights to play advertisements.


title: Empire State Building

text: According to official fact sheets, the Empire State Building weighs and has an internal volume of . The interior required of elevator cable and of electrical wires. It has a total floor area of , and each of the floors in the base cover . This gives the building capacity for 20,000 tenants and 15,000 visitors.


title: Empire State Building

text: The riveted steel frame of the building was originally designed to handle all of the building's gravitational stresses and wind loads. The amount of material used in the building's construction resulted in a very stiff structure when compared to other skyscrapers, with a structural stiffness of versus the Willis Tower's and the John Hancock Center's . A December 1930 feature in "Popular Mechanics" estimated that a building with the Empire State's dimensions would still stand even if hit with an impact of .


title: Empire State Building

text: Utilities are grouped in a central shaft. On the 6th through 86th stories, the central shaft is surrounded by a main corridor on all four sides. Per the final specifications of the building, the corridor is surrounded in turn by office space deep, maximizing office space at a time before air conditioning became commonplace. Each of the floors has 210 structural columns that pass through it, which provide structural stability but limits the amount of open space on these floors. The relative dearth of stone in the Empire State Building allows for more space overall, with a 1:200 stone-to-building ratio compared to a 1:50 ratio in similar buildings.


title: Empire State Building

text: The original main lobby is accessed from Fifth Avenue, on the building's east side, and is the only place in the building where the design contains narrative motifs. It contains an entrance with one set of double doors between a pair of revolving doors. At the top of each doorway is a bronze motif depicting one of three "crafts or industries" used in the building's construction—Electricity, Masonry, and Heating. The three-story-high space, which runs parallel to 33rd and 34th Streets, contains storefronts to the north and south. These storefronts are flanked by tubes of dark rounded marble and topped by a vertical band of grooves set into the marble. The lobby contains two tiers of marble: a lighter marble on the top, above the storefronts, and a darker marble on the bottom, flush with the storefronts. There is a pattern of zigzagging terrazzo tiles on the lobby floor, which leads from east to west.


title: Empire State Building

text: The western ends of the north and south walls include escalators to a mezzanine level. At the west end of the lobby, behind the security desk, is an aluminum relief of the skyscraper as it was originally built (without the antenna). The relief, which was intended to provide a welcoming effect, contains an embossed outline of the building, with rays radiating from the spire and the sun behind it. In the background is a state map of New York with the building's location marked by a "medallion" in the very southeast portion of the outline. A compass is depicted in the bottom right and a plaque to the building's major developers is on the bottom left. A scale model of the building was also placed south of the security desk.


title: Empire State Building

text: The plaque at the western end of the lobby is on the eastern interior wall of a one-story tall rectangular-shaped corridor that surrounds the banks of escalators, with a similar design to the lobby. The rectangular-shaped corridor actually consists of two long hallways on the northern and southern sides of the rectangle, as well as a shorter hallway on the eastern side and another long hallway on the western side. At both ends of the northern and southern corridors, there is a bank of four low-rise elevators in between the corridors. The western side of the rectangular elevator-bank corridor extends north to the 34th Street entrance and south to the 33rd Street entrance. It borders three large storefronts and leads to escalators (originally stairs), which go both to the second floor and to the basement. Going from west to east, there are secondary entrances to 34th and 33rd Streets from the northern and southern corridors, respectively. The side entrances from 33rd and 34th Street lead to two-story-high corridors around the elevator core, crossed by stainless steel and glass-enclosed bridges at the mezzanine floor.


title: Empire State Building

text: Until the 1960s, an Art Deco mural, inspired by both the sky and the Machine Age, was installed in the lobby ceilings. Subsequent damage to these murals, designed by artist Leif Neandross, resulted in reproductions being installed. Renovations to the lobby in 2009, such as replacing the clock over the information desk in the Fifth Avenue lobby with an anemometer and installing two chandeliers intended to be part of the building when it originally opened, revived much of its original grandeur. The north corridor contained eight illuminated panels created in 1963 by Roy Sparkia and Renée Nemorov, in time for the 1964 World's Fair, depicting the building as the Eighth Wonder of the World alongside the traditional seven. The building's owners installed a series of paintings by the New York artist Kysa Johnson in the concourse level. Johnson later filed a federal lawsuit, in January 2014, under the Visual Artists Rights Act alleging the negligent destruction of the paintings and damage to her reputation as an artist. As part of the building's 2010 renovation, Denise Amses commissioned a work consisting of 15,000 stars and 5,000 circles, superimposed on a etched-glass installation, in the lobby.


title: Empire State Building

text: The Empire State Building has 73 elevators in all, including service elevators. Its original 64 elevators, built by the Otis Elevator Company, in a central core and are of varying heights, with the longest of these elevators reaching from the lobby to the 80th floor. As originally built, there were four "express" elevators that connected the lobby, 80th floor, and several landings in between; the other 60 "local" elevators connected the landings with the floors above these intermediate landings. Of the 64 total elevators, 58 were for passenger use (comprising the four express elevators and 54 local elevators), and eight were for freight deliveries. The elevators were designed to move at . At the time of the skyscraper's construction, their practical speed was limited to per city law, but this limit was removed shortly after the building opened.


title: Empire State Building

text: Additional elevators connect the 80th floor to the six floors above it, as the six extra floors were built after the original 80 stories were approved. The elevators were mechanically operated until 2011, when they were replaced with automatic elevators during the $550 million renovation of the building. An additional elevator connects the 86th and 102nd floor observatories, which allows visitors access the 102nd floor observatory after having their tickets scanned. It also allows employees to access the mechanical floors located between the 87th and 101st floors.


title: Empire State Building

text: The 80th, 86th, and 102nd floors contain observatories. The latter two observatories saw a combined average of four million visitors per year in 2010. Since opening, the observatories have been more popular than similar observatories at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the Chrysler Building, the first One World Trade Center, or the Woolworth Building, despite being more expensive. There are variable charges to enter the observatories; one ticket allows visitors to go as high as the 86th floor, and there is an additional charge to visit the 102nd floor. Other ticket options for visitors include scheduled access to view the sunrise from the observatory, a "premium" guided tour with VIP access, and the "AM/PM" package which allows for two visits in the same day.


title: Empire State Building

text: The 86th floor observatory contains both an enclosed viewing gallery and an open-air outdoor viewing area, allowing for it to remain open 365 days a year regardless of the weather. The 102nd floor observatory is completely enclosed and much smaller in size. The 102nd floor observatory was closed to the public from the late 1990s to 2005 due to limited viewing capacity and long lines. The observation decks were redesigned in mid-1979. The 102nd floor was again redesigned in a project that was completed in 2019, allowing the windows to be extended from floor to ceiling and widening the space in the observatory overall. An observatory on the 80th floor, opened in 2019, includes various exhibits as well as a mural of the skyline drawn by British artist Stephen Wiltshire.


title: Empire State Building

text: According to a 2010 report by Concierge.com, the five lines to enter the observation decks are "as legendary as the building itself". Concierge.com stated that there were five lines: the sidewalk line, the lobby elevator line, the ticket purchase line, the second elevator line, and the line to get off the elevator and onto the observation deck. However, in 2016, New York City's official tourism website, NYCgo.com, made note of only three lines: the security check line, the ticket purchase line, and the second elevator line. Following renovations completed in 2019, designed to streamline queuing and reduce wait times, guests enter from a single entrance on 34th Street, where they make their way through exhibits on their way up to the observatories. Guests were offered a variety of ticket packages, including a package that enables them to skip the lines throughout the duration of their stay. The Empire State Building garners significant revenue from ticket sales for its observation decks, making more money from ticket sales than it does from renting office space during some years.


title: Empire State Building

text: In early 1994, a motion simulator attraction was built on the 2nd floor, as a complement to the observation deck. The original cinematic presentation lasted approximately 25 minutes, while the simulation was about eight minutes. The ride had two incarnations. The original version, which ran from 1994 until around 2002, featured James Doohan, "" Scotty, as the airplane's pilot who humorously tried to keep the flight under control during a storm. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, the ride was closed. An updated version debuted in mid-2002, featuring actor Kevin Bacon as the pilot, with the new flight also going haywire. This new version served a more informative goal, as opposed to the old version's main purpose of entertainment, and contained details about the 9/11 attacks. The simulator received mixed reviews, with assessments of the ride ranging from "great" to "satisfactory" to "corny".


title: Empire State Building

text: The final stage of the building was the installation of a hollow mast, a steel shaft fitted with elevators and utilities, above the 86th floor. At the top would be a conical roof and the 102nd-floor docking station. Inside, the elevators would ascend from the 86th floor ticket offices to a 101st-floor waiting room. From there, stairs would lead to the 102nd floor, where passengers would enter the airships. The airships would have been moored to the spire at the equivalent of the building's 106th floor.


title: Empire State Building

text: As constructed, the mast contains four rectangular tiers topped by a cylindrical shaft with a conical pinnacle. On the 102nd floor (formerly the 101st floor), there is a door with stairs ascending to the 103rd floor (formerly the 102nd). This was built as a disembarkation floor for airships tethered to the building's spire, and has a circular balcony outside. It is now an access point to reach the spire for maintenance. The room now contains electrical equipment, but celebrities and dignitaries may also be given permission to take pictures there. Above the 103rd floor, there is a set of stairs and a ladder to reach the spire for maintenance work. The mast's 480 windows were all replaced in 2015. The mast serves as the base of the building's broadcasting antenna.


title: Empire State Building

text: Broadcasting began at the Empire State Building on December 22, 1931, when NBC and RCA began transmitting experimental television broadcasts from a small antenna erected atop the mast, with two separate transmitters for the visual and audio data. They leased the 85th floor and built a laboratory there. In 1934, RCA was joined by Edwin Howard Armstrong in a cooperative venture to test his FM system from the building's antenna. This setup, which entailed the installation of the world's first FM transmitter, continued only until October of the next year due to disputes between RCA and Armstrong. Specifically, NBC wanted to install more TV equipment in the room where Armstrong's transmitter was located.


title: Empire State Building

text: After some time, the 85th floor became home to RCA's New York television operations initially as experimental station W2XBS channel 1 then, from 1941, as commercial station WNBT channel 1 (now WNBC channel 4). NBC's FM station, W2XDG, began transmitting from the antenna in 1940. NBC retained exclusive use of the top of the building until 1950 when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ordered the exclusive deal be terminated. The FCC directive was based on consumer complaints that a common location was necessary for the seven extant New York-area television stations to transmit from so that receiving antennas would not have to be constantly adjusted. Other television broadcasters would later join RCA at the building on the 81st through 83rd floors, often along with sister FM stations. Construction of a dedicated broadcast tower began on July 27, 1950, with TV, and FM, transmissions starting in 1951. The broadcast tower was completed in 1953. From 1951, six broadcasters agreed to pay a combined $600,000 per year for the use of the antenna. In 1965, a separate set of FM antennae was constructed ringing the 103rd floor observation area to act as a master antenna.


title: Empire State Building

text: The placement of the stations in the Empire State Building became a major issue with the construction of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in the late 1960s, and early 1970s. The greater height of the Twin Towers would reflect radio waves broadcast from the Empire State Building, eventually resulting in some broadcasters relocating to the newer towers instead of suing the developer, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Even though the nine stations who were broadcasting from the Empire State Building were leasing their broadcast space until 1984, most of these stations moved to the World Trade Center as soon as it was completed in 1971. The broadcasters obtained a court order stipulating that the Port Authority had to build a mast and transmission equipment in the North Tower, as well as pay the broadcasters' leases in the Empire State Building until 1984. Only a few broadcasters renewed their leases in the Empire State Building.


title: Empire State Building

text: The September 11 attacks destroyed the World Trade Center and the broadcast centers atop it, leaving most of the city's stations without a transmitter for ten days until the Armstrong Tower in Alpine, New Jersey was re-activated temporarily. By October 2001, nearly all of the city's commercial broadcast stations (both television and FM radio) were again transmitting from the top of the Empire State Building. In a report that Congress commissioned about the transition from analog television to digital television, it was stated that the placement of broadcast stations in the Empire State Building was considered "problematic" due to interference from nearby buildings. In comparison, the congressional report stated that the former Twin Towers had very few buildings of comparable height nearby thus signals suffered little interference. In 2003, a few FM stations were relocated to the nearby Condé Nast Building to reduce the number of broadcast stations using the Empire State Building. Eleven television stations and twenty-two FM stations had signed 15-year leases in the building by May 2003. It was expected that a taller broadcast tower in Bayonne, New Jersey, or Governors Island, would be built in the meantime with the Empire State Building being used as a "backup" since signal transmissions from the building were generally of poorer quality. Following the construction of One World Trade Center in the late 2000s and early 2010s, some TV stations began moving their transmitting facilities there.


title: Empire State Building

text: The site was previously owned by John Jacob Astor of the prominent Astor family, who had owned the site since the mid-1820s. In 1893, John Jacob Astor Sr.'s grandson William Waldorf Astor opened the Waldorf Hotel on the site. Four years later, his cousin, John Jacob Astor IV, opened the 16-story Astoria Hotel on an adjacent site. The two portions of the Waldorf–Astoria hotel had 1,300 bedrooms, making it the largest hotel in the world at the time. After the death of its founding proprietor, George Boldt, in early 1918, the hotel lease was purchased by Thomas Coleman du Pont. By the 1920s, the old Waldorf–Astoria was becoming dated and the elegant social life of New York had moved much farther north. Additionally, many stores had opened on Fifth Avenue north of 34th Street. The Astor family decided to build a replacement hotel on Park Avenue and sold the hotel to Bethlehem Engineering Corporation in 1928 for $14–16 million. The hotel closed shortly thereafter on May 3, 1929.


title: Empire State Building

text: Bethlehem Engineering Corporation originally intended to build a 25-story office building on the Waldorf–Astoria site. The company's president, Floyd De L. Brown, paid $100,000 of the $1 million down payment required to start construction on the building, with the promise that the difference would be paid later. Brown borrowed $900,000 from a bank but defaulted on the loan.


title: Empire State Building

text: After Brown was unable to secure additional funding, the land was resold to Empire State Inc., a group of wealthy investors that included Louis G. Kaufman, Ellis P. Earle, John J. Raskob, Coleman du Pont, and Pierre S. du Pont. The name came from the state nickname for New York. Alfred E. Smith, a former Governor of New York and U.S. presidential candidate whose 1928 campaign had been managed by Raskob, was appointed head of the company. The group also purchased nearby land so they would have the needed for the base, with the combined plot measuring wide by long. The Empire State Inc. consortium was announced to the public in August 1929. Concurrently, Smith announced the construction of an 80-story building on the site, to be taller than any other buildings in existence.


title: Empire State Building

text: Empire State Inc. contracted William F. Lamb, of architectural firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, to create the building design. Lamb produced the building drawings in just two weeks using the firm's earlier designs for the Reynolds Building in Winston-Salem, North Carolina as the basis. He had also been inspired by Raymond Hood's design for the Daily News Building, which was being constructed at the same time. Concurrently, Lamb's partner Richmond Shreve created "bug diagrams" of the project requirements. The 1916 Zoning Act forced Lamb to design a structure that incorporated setbacks resulting in the lower floors being larger than the upper floors. Consequently, the building was designed from the top down, giving it a pencil-like shape. The plans were devised within a budget of $50 million and a stipulation that the building be ready for occupancy within 18 months of the start of construction.


title: Empire State Building

text: The original plan of the building was 50 stories, but was later increased to 60 and then 80 stories. Height restrictions were placed on nearby buildings to ensure that the top fifty floors of the planned 80-story, building would have unobstructed views of the city. "The New York Times" lauded the site's proximity to mass transit, with the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit's 34th Street station and the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad's 33rd Street terminal one block away, as well as Penn Station two blocks away and Grand Central Terminal nine blocks away at its closest. It also praised the of proposed floor space near "one of the busiest sections in the world". The Empire State Building was to be a typical office building, but Raskob intended to build it "better and in a bigger way", according to architectural writer Donald J. Reynolds.


title: Empire State Building

text: While plans for the Empire State Building were being finalized, an intense competition in New York for the title of "world's tallest building" was underway. 40 Wall Street (then the Bank of Manhattan Building) and the Chrysler Building in Manhattan both vied for this distinction and were already under construction when work began on the Empire State Building. The "Race into the Sky", as popular media called it at the time, was representative of the country's optimism in the 1920s, fueled by the building boom in major cities. The race was defined by at least five other proposals, although only the Empire State Building would survive the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The 40 Wall Street tower was revised, in April 1929, from to making it the world's tallest. The Chrysler Building added its steel tip to its roof in October 1929, thus bringing it to a height of and greatly exceeding the height of 40 Wall Street. The Chrysler Building's developer, Walter Chrysler, realized that his tower's height would exceed the Empire State Building's as well, having instructed his architect, William Van Alen, to change the Chrysler's original roof from a stubby Romanesque dome to a narrow steel spire. Raskob, wishing to have the Empire State Building be the world's tallest, reviewed the plans and had five floors added as well as a spire; however, the new floors would need to be set back because of projected wind pressure on the extension. On November 18, 1929, Smith acquired a lot at 27–31 West 33rd Street, adding to the width of the proposed office building's site. Two days later, Smith announced the updated plans for the skyscraper. The plans included an observation deck on the 86th-floor roof at a height of , higher than the Chrysler's 71st-floor observation deck.


title: Empire State Building

text: The 1,050-foot Empire State Building would only be taller than the Chrysler Building, and Raskob was afraid that Chrysler might try to "pull a trick like hiding a rod in the spire and then sticking it up at the last minute." The plans were revised one last time in December 1929, to include a 16-story, metal "crown" and an additional mooring mast intended for dirigibles. The roof height was now , making it the tallest building in the world by far, even without the antenna. The addition of the dirigible station meant that another floor, the now-enclosed 86th floor, would have to be built below the crown; however, unlike the Chrysler's spire, the Empire State's mast would serve a practical purpose. A revised plan was announced to the public in late December 1929, just before the start of construction. The final plan was sketched within two hours, the night before the plan was supposed to be presented to the site's owners in January 1930. "The New York Times" reported that the spire was facing some "technical problems", but they were "no greater than might be expected under such a novel plan." By this time the blueprints for the building had gone through up to fifteen versions before they were approved. Lamb described the other specifications he was given for the final, approved plan:


title: Empire State Building

text: The contractors were Starrett Brothers and Eken, which were composed of Paul and William A. Starrett and Andrew J. Eken. The project was financed primarily by Raskob and Pierre du Pont, while James Farley's General Builders Supply Corporation supplied the building materials. John W. Bowser was the construction superintendent of the project, and the structural engineer of the building was Homer G. Balcom. The tight completion schedule necessitated the commencement of construction even though the design had yet to be finalized.


title: Empire State Building

text: Demolition of the old Waldorf–Astoria began on October 1, 1929. Stripping the building down was an arduous process, as the hotel had been constructed using more rigid material than earlier buildings had been. Furthermore, the old hotel's granite, wood chips, and "'precious' metals such as lead, brass, and zinc" were not in high demand resulting in issues with disposal. Most of the wood was deposited into a woodpile on nearby 30th Street or was burned in a swamp elsewhere. Much of the other materials that made up the old hotel, including the granite and bronze, were dumped into the Atlantic Ocean near Sandy Hook, New Jersey.


title: Empire State Building

text: By the time the hotel's demolition started, Raskob had secured the required funding for the construction of the building. The plan was to start construction later that year but, on October 24, the New York Stock Exchange experienced the major and sudden Wall Street Crash, marking the beginning of the decade-long Great Depression. Despite the economic downturn, Raskob refused to cancel the project because of the progress that had been made up to that point. Neither Raskob, who had ceased speculation in the stock market the previous year, nor Smith, who had no stock investments, suffered financially in the crash. However, most of the investors were affected and as a result, in December 1929, Empire State Inc. obtained a $27.5 million loan from Metropolitan Life Insurance Company so construction could begin. The stock market crash resulted in no demand for new office space; Raskob and Smith nonetheless started construction, as canceling the project would have resulted in greater losses for the investors.


title: Empire State Building

text: A structural steel contract was awarded on January 12, 1930, with excavation of the site beginning ten days later on January 22, before the old hotel had been completely demolished. Two twelve-hour shifts, consisting of 300 men each, worked continuously to dig the foundation. Small pier holes were sunk into the ground to house the concrete footings that would support the steelwork. Excavation was nearly complete by early March, and construction on the building itself started on March 17, with the builders placing the first steel columns on the completed footings before the rest of the footings had been finished. Around this time, Lamb held a press conference on the building plans. He described the reflective steel panels parallel to the windows, the large-block Indiana Limestone facade that was slightly more expensive than smaller bricks, and the building's vertical lines. Four colossal columns, intended for installation in the center of the building site, were delivered; they would support a combined when the building was finished.


title: Empire State Building

text: The structural steel was pre-ordered and pre-fabricated in anticipation of a revision to the city's building code that would have allowed the Empire State Building's structural steel to carry , up from , thus reducing the amount of steel needed for the building. Although the 18,000-psi regulation had been safely enacted in other cities, Mayor Jimmy Walker did not sign the new codes into law until March 26, 1930, just before construction was due to commence. The first steel framework was installed on April 1, 1930. From there, construction proceeded at a rapid pace; during one stretch of 10 working days, the builders erected fourteen floors. This was made possible through precise coordination of the building's planning, as well as the mass production of common materials such as windows and spandrels. On one occasion, when a supplier could not provide timely delivery of dark Hauteville marble, Starrett switched to using Rose Famosa marble from a German quarry that was purchased specifically to provide the project with sufficient marble.


title: Empire State Building

text: The scale of the project was massive, with trucks carrying "16,000 partition tiles, 5,000 bags of cement, of sand and 300 bags of lime" arriving at the construction site every day. There were also cafes and concession stands on five of the incomplete floors so workers did not have to descend to the ground level to eat lunch. Temporary water taps were also built so workers did not waste time buying water bottles from the ground level. Additionally, carts running on a small railway system transported materials from the basement storage to elevators that brought the carts to the desired floors where they would then be distributed throughout that level using another set of tracks. The of steel ordered for the project was the largest-ever single order of steel at the time, comprising more steel than was ordered for the Chrysler Building and 40 Wall Street combined. According to historian John Tauranac, building materials were sourced from numerous, and distant, sources with "limestone from Indiana, steel girders from Pittsburgh, cement and mortar from upper New York State, marble from Italy, France, and England, wood from northern and Pacific Coast forests, [and] hardware from New England." The facade, too, used a variety of material, most prominently Indiana limestone but also Swedish black granite, terracotta, and brick.


title: Empire State Building

text: By June 20, the skyscraper's supporting steel structure had risen to the 26th floor, and by July 27, half of the steel structure had been completed. Starrett Bros. and Eken endeavored to build one floor a day in order to speed up construction, a goal that they almost reached with their pace of stories per week; prior to this, the fastest pace of construction for a building of similar height had been stories per week. While construction progressed, the final designs for the floors were being designed from the ground up (as opposed to the general design, which had been from the roof down). Some of the levels were still undergoing final approval, with several orders placed within an hour of a plan being finalized. On September 10, as steelwork was nearing completion, Smith laid the building's cornerstone during a ceremony attended by thousands. The stone contained a box with contemporary artifacts including the previous day's "New York Times", a U.S. currency set containing all denominations of notes and coins minted in 1930, a history of the site and building, and photographs of the people involved in construction. The steel structure was topped out at on September 19, twelve days ahead of schedule and 23 weeks after the start of construction. Workers raised a flag atop the 86th floor to signify this milestone.


title: Empire State Building

text: Work on the building's interior and crowning mast commenced after the topping out. The mooring mast topped out on November 21, two months after the steelwork had been completed. Meanwhile, work on the walls and interior was progressing at a quick pace, with exterior walls built up to the 75th floor by the time steelwork had been built to the 95th floor. The majority of the facade was already finished by the middle of November. Because of the building's height, it was deemed infeasible to have many elevators or large elevator cabins, so the builders contracted with the Otis Elevator Company to make 66 cars that could speed at , which represented the largest-ever elevator order at the time.


title: Empire State Building

text: In addition to the time constraint builders had, there were also space limitations because construction materials had to be delivered quickly, and trucks needed to drop off these materials without congesting traffic. This was solved by creating a temporary driveway for the trucks between 33rd and 34th Streets, and then storing the materials in the building's first floor and basements. Concrete mixers, brick hoppers, and stone hoists inside the building ensured that materials would be able to ascend quickly and without endangering or inconveniencing the public. At one point, over 200 trucks made material deliveries at the building site every day. A series of relay and erection derricks, placed on platforms erected near the building, lifted the steel from the trucks below and installed the beams at the appropriate locations. The Empire State Building was structurally completed on April 11, 1931, twelve days ahead of schedule and 410 days after construction commenced. Al Smith shot the final rivet, which was made of solid gold.


title: Empire State Building

text: The project involved more than 3,500 workers at its peak, including 3,439 on a single day, August 14, 1930. Many of the workers were Irish and Italian immigrants, with a sizable minority of Mohawk ironworkers from the Kahnawake reserve near Montreal. According to official accounts, five workers died during the construction, although the "New York Daily News" gave reports of 14 deaths and a headline in the socialist magazine "The New Masses" spread unfounded rumors of up to 42 deaths. The Empire State Building cost $40,948,900 to build (equivalent to $ in ), including demolition of the Waldorf–Astoria. This was lower than the $60 million budgeted for construction.


title: Empire State Building

text: Lewis Hine captured many photographs of the construction, documenting not only the work itself but also providing insight into the daily life of workers in that era. Hine's images were used extensively by the media to publish daily press releases. According to the writer Jim Rasenberger, Hine "climbed out onto the steel with the ironworkers and dangled from a derrick cable hundreds of feet above the city to capture, as no one ever had before (or has since), the dizzy work of building skyscrapers". In Rasenberger's words, Hine turned what might have been an assignment of "corporate flak" into "exhilarating art". These images were later organized into their own collection. Onlookers were enraptured by the sheer height at which the steelworkers operated. "New York" magazine wrote of the steelworkers: "Like little spiders they toiled, spinning a fabric of steel against the sky".


title: Empire State Building

text: The Empire State Building officially opened on May 1, 1931, forty-five days ahead of its projected opening date, and eighteen months from the start of construction. The opening was marked with an event featuring United States President Herbert Hoover, who turned on the building's lights with the ceremonial button push from Washington, D.C. Over 350 guests attended the opening ceremony, and following luncheon, at the 86th floor including Jimmy Walker, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Al Smith. An account from that day stated that the view from the luncheon was obscured by a fog, with other landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty being "lost in the mist" enveloping New York City. The Empire State Building officially opened the next day. Advertisements for the building's observatories were placed in local newspapers, while nearby hotels also capitalized on the events by releasing advertisements that lauded their proximity to the newly opened building.


title: Empire State Building

text: According to "The New York Times", builders and real estate speculators predicted that the Empire State Building would be the world's tallest building "for many years", thus ending the great New York City skyscraper rivalry. At the time, most engineers agreed that it would be difficult to build a building taller than , even with the hardy Manhattan bedrock as a foundation. Technically, it was believed possible to build a tower of up to , but it was deemed uneconomical to do so, especially during the Great Depression. As the tallest building in the world, at that time, and the first one to exceed 100 floors, the Empire State Building became an icon of the city and, ultimately, of the nation.


title: Empire State Building

text: In 1932, the Fifth Avenue Association gave the building its 1931 "gold medal" for architectural excellence, signifying that the Empire State had been the best-designed building on Fifth Avenue to open in 1931. A year later, on March 2, 1933, the movie "King Kong" was released. The movie, which depicted a large stop motion ape named Kong climbing the Empire State Building, made the still-new building into a cinematic icon.


title: Empire State Building

text: At the beginning of 1931, Fifth Avenue was experiencing high demand for storefront space, with only 12 of 224 stores being unoccupied. The Empire State Building, along with 500 Fifth Avenue and 608 Fifth Avenue, were expected to add a combined 11 stores. The office space was less successful, as the Empire State Building's opening had coincided with the Great Depression in the United States. In the first year, only 23 percent of the available space was rented, as compared to the early 1920s, where the average building would be 52 percent occupied upon opening and 90 percent occupied within five years. The lack of renters led New Yorkers to deride the building as the "Empty State Building" or "Smith's Folly".


title: Empire State Building

text: The earliest tenants in the Empire State Building were large companies, banks, and garment industries. Jack Brod, one of the building's longest resident tenants, co-established the Empire Diamond Corporation with his father in the building in mid-1931 and rented space in the building until he died in 2008. Brod recalled that there were only about 20 tenants at the time of opening, including him, and that Al Smith was the only real tenant in the space above his seventh-floor offices. Generally, during the early 1930s, it was rare for more than a single office space to be rented in the building, despite Smith's and Raskob's aggressive marketing efforts in the newspapers and to anyone they knew. The building's lights were continuously left on, even in the unrented spaces, to give the impression of occupancy. This was exacerbated by competition from Rockefeller Center as well as from buildings on 42nd Street, which, when combined with the Empire State Building, resulted in surplus of office space in a slow market during the 1930s.


title: Empire State Building

text: Aggressive marketing efforts served to reinforce the Empire State Building's status as the world's tallest. The observatory was advertised in local newspapers as well as on railroad tickets. The building became a popular tourist attraction, with one million people each paying one dollar to ride elevators to the observation decks in 1931. In its first year of operation, the observation deck made approximately $2 million in revenue, as much as its owners made in rent that year. By 1936, the observation deck was crowded on a daily basis, with food and drink available for purchase at the top, and by 1944 the building had received its five-millionth visitor. In 1931, NBC took up tenancy, leasing space on the 85th floor for radio broadcasts. From the outset the building was in debt, losing $1 million per year by 1935. Real estate developer Seymour Durst recalled that the building was so underused in 1936 that there was no elevator service above the 45th floor, as the building above the 41st floor was empty except for the NBC offices and the Raskob/Du Pont offices on the 81st floor.


title: Empire State Building

text: Per the original plans, the Empire State Building's spire was intended to be an airship docking station. Raskob and Smith had proposed dirigible ticketing offices and passenger waiting rooms on the 86th floor, while the airships themselves would be tied to the spire at the equivalent of the building's 106th floor. An elevator would ferry passengers from the 86th to the 101st floor after they had checked in on the 86th floor, after which passengers would have climbed steep ladders to board the airship. The idea, however, was impractical and dangerous due to powerful updrafts caused by the building itself, the wind currents across Manhattan, and the spires of nearby skyscrapers. Furthermore, even if the airship were to successfully navigate all these obstacles, its crew would have to jettison some ballast by releasing water onto the streets below in order to maintain stability, and then tie the craft's nose to the spire with no mooring lines securing the tail end of the craft. On September 15, 1931, a small commercial United States Navy airship circled 25 times in winds. The airship then attempted to dock at the mast, but its ballast spilled and the craft was rocked by unpredictable eddies. The near-disaster scuttled plans to turn the building's spire into an airship terminal, although one blimp did manage to make a single newspaper delivery afterward.


title: Empire State Building

text: On July 28, 1945, a B-25 Mitchell bomber crashed into the north side of the Empire State Building, between the 79th and 80th floors. One engine completely penetrated the building and landed in a neighboring block, while the other engine and part of the landing gear plummeted down an elevator shaft. Fourteen people were killed in the incident, but the building escaped severe damage and was reopened two days later.


title: Empire State Building

text: By the 1940s, the Empire State Building was 98 percent occupied. The structure broke even for the first time in the 1950s. At the time, mass transit options in the building's vicinity were limited compared to the present day. Despite this challenge, the Empire State Building began to attract renters due to its reputation. A radio antenna was erected on top of the towers starting in 1950, allowing the area's television stations to be broadcast from the building.


title: Empire State Building

text: Despite the turnaround in the building's fortunes, Raskob listed it for sale in 1951, with a minimum asking price of $50 million. The property was purchased by business partners Roger L. Stevens, Henry Crown, Alfred R. Glancy and Ben Tobin. The sale was brokered by the Charles F. Noyes Company, a prominent real estate firm in upper Manhattan, for $51 million, the highest price paid for a single structure at the time. By this time, the Empire State had been fully leased for several years with a waiting list of parties looking to lease space in the building, according to the "Cortland Standard". That same year, six news companies formed a partnership to pay a combined annual fee of $600,000 to use the building's antenna, which was completed in 1953. Crown bought out his partners' ownership stakes in 1954, becoming the sole owner. The following year, the American Society of Civil Engineers named the building one of the "Seven Modern Civil Engineering Wonders".


title: Empire State Building

text: In 1961, Lawrence A. Wien signed a contract to purchase the Empire State Building for $65 million, with Harry B. Helmsley acting as partners in the building's operating lease. This became the new highest price for a single structure. Over 3,000 people paid $10,000 for one share each in a company called Empire State Building Associates. The company in turn subleased the building to another company headed by Helmsley and Wien, raising $33 million of the funds needed to pay the purchase price. In a separate transaction, the land underneath the building was sold to Prudential Insurance for $29 million. Helmsley, Wien, and Peter Malkin quickly started a program of minor improvement projects, including the first-ever full-building facade refurbishment and window-washing in 1962, the installation of new flood lights on the 72nd floor in 1964, and replacement of the manually operated elevators with automatic units in 1966. The little-used western end of the second floor was used as a storage space until 1964, at which point it received escalators to the first floor as part of its conversion into a highly sought retail area.


title: Empire State Building

text: In 1961, the same year that Helmsley, Wien, and Malkin had purchased the Empire State Building, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey formally backed plans for a new World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. The plan originally included 66-story twin towers with column-free open spaces. The Empire State's owners and real estate speculators were worried that the twin towers' of office space would create a glut of rentable space in Manhattan as well as take away the Empire State Building's profits from lessees. A revision in the World Trade Center's plan brought the twin towers to each or 110 stories, taller than the Empire State. Opponents of the new project included prominent real-estate developer Robert Tishman, as well as Wien's Committee for a Reasonable World Trade Center. In response to Wien's opposition, Port Authority executive director Austin J. Tobin said that Wien was only opposing the project because it would overshadow his Empire State Building as the world's tallest building.


title: Empire State Building

text: The World Trade Center's twin towers started construction in 1966. The following year, the Ostankino Tower succeeded the Empire State Building as the tallest freestanding structure in the world. In 1970, the Empire State surrendered its position as the world's tallest building, when the World Trade Center's still-under-construction North Tower surpassed it, on October 19; the North Tower was topped out on December 23, 1970.


title: Empire State Building

text: In December 1975, the observation deck was opened on the 110th floor of the Twin Towers, significantly higher than the 86th floor observatory on the Empire State Building. The latter was also losing revenue during this period, particularly as a number of broadcast stations had moved to the World Trade Center in 1971; although the Port Authority continued to pay the broadcasting leases for the Empire State until 1984. The Empire State Building was still seen as prestigious, having seen its forty-millionth visitor in March 1971.


title: Empire State Building

text: By 1980, there were nearly two million annual visitors, although a building official had previously estimated between 1.5 million and 1.75 million annual visitors. The building received its own ZIP code in May 1980 in a roll out of 63 new postal codes in Manhattan. At the time, its tenants collectively received 35,000 pieces of mail daily. The Empire State Building celebrated its 50th anniversary on May 1, 1981, with a much-publicized, but poorly received, laser light show, as well as an "Empire State Building Week" that ran through to May 8.


title: Empire State Building

text: The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to designate the building and its lobby as city landmarks on May 19, 1981, citing the historic nature of the first and second floors, as well as "the fixtures and interior components" of the upper floors. The New York City Planning Commission endorsed the landmark status. The building became a National Historic Landmark in 1986 in close alignment to the New York City Landmarks report. The Empire State Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places the following year due to its architectural significance.


title: Empire State Building

text: Capital improvements were made to the Empire State Building during the early to mid-1990s at a cost of $55 million. These improvements entailed replacing alarm systems, elevators, windows, and air conditioning; making the observation deck compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA); and refurbishing the limestone facade. The observatory renovation was added after disability rights groups and the United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the building in 1992, in what was the first lawsuit filed by an organization under the new law. A settlement was reached in 1994, in which the Empire State Building Associates agreed to add ADA-compliant elements, such as new elevators, ramps, and automatic doors, during its ongoing renovation.


title: Empire State Building

text: Prudential sold the land under the building in 1991 for $42 million to a buyer representing hotelier , who was imprisoned at the time in connection with the deadly at the in Tokyo. In 1994, Donald Trump entered into a joint-venture agreement with Yokoi, with a shared goal of breaking the Empire State Building's lease on the land in an effort to gain total ownership of the building so that, if successful, the two could reap the potential profits of merging the ownership of the building with the land beneath it. Having secured a half-ownership of the land, Trump devised plans to take ownership of the building itself so he could renovate it, even though Helmsley and Malkin had already started their refurbishment project. He sued Empire State Building Associates in February 1995, claiming that the latter had caused the building to become a "high-rise slum" and a "second-rate, rodent-infested" office tower. Trump had intended to have Empire State Building Associates evicted for violating the terms of their lease, but was denied. This led to Helmsley's companies countersuing Trump in May. This sparked a series of lawsuits and countersuits that lasted several years, partly arising from Trump's desire to obtain the building's master lease by taking it from Empire State Building Associates. Upon Harry Helmsley's death in 1997, the Malkins sued Helmsley's widow, Leona Helmsley, for control of the building.