According to many sources, the tower on the roof of the highest structure of its time was designed specifically in order to accept aircraft. We checked if it was true.

Here's what the cognitive site tells us "Fakrum": “The famous 102-storey skyscraper Empire-Last Building, located on the island of Manhattan, is the highest building in New York. It is used as a business center, but during construction the city planned to get additional benefits from it. It was assumed that the spire of the building will become a mooring mast for airships. The 102nd floor was designed in such a way that it would have done perfectly with the role of a mooring platform with gestures for lifting on the airship. Registration of passengers was supposed to be carried out on the 86th floor, from where people delivered a special high-speed elevator to the platform. ”

Similar information can also be learned from sources such as "RIA Novosti" "New York Guide", Travelask, Encyclopedia "About the USA"as well as from printed books ("Essays on poetics and rhetoric of architecture"). The Internet is very popular photo, depicting the airship, seemingly moored at the spire of one of the symbols of New York.

There is no need to talk about what is Empire-promoting book. The skyscraper 381 m high was opened by US President Herbert Hoover on May 1, 1931, in the midst of the great depression, and the next 40 years, before the construction of the towers of the World Commerce Center, remained the highest building in the world. And two years after the opening, the building became completely cult when millions of people watched the film "King Kong".

Now let's turn to the photo. It in 1930 distributed around the world, the International News Photos agency. Note that the case was before the opening of the building, as evidenced by the appearance of its top. However, another is much more important. Before us is one of the first examples of fake photography of a similar scale. In fact, at that time, not a single airship has tried to moor on the building. Later to fly past the building the same airship Los Angeles, and a fake photograph, apparently, was an insurance in case of failure. In 2013, the picture was represented On the exhibition organized by the famous metro museum “Creating a fake. Manipulation of photos to "Photoshop". "

Finally, let's talk about the history of the construction of this giant building. All events of interest to us unfolded at his final stage. As reported The New York Times, at the end of 1929, the chief investor of the project Alfred Smith said that the height of the building will be increased from 1050 feet (320 m) to 1250 (381 m). According to him, an additional 200 feet will have to occupy a mooring mast for airships, which will save people from the need to fly to the neighboring New Jersey. As Smith stated, seven minutes after the poskali, passengers will be on the street.

However, was the main goal of investors in this? The lion's share of authoritative sources says no. The fact is that in those years, empire-promot-booking He competed With Chrysler-Building and Trump-Building for the right to be called the highest building in the world. Initially, the height of the last two buildings was supposed to be 925 feet (282 m), however, at first the architect Trump-Building cheat and increased his brainchild by 2 feet, to which the creator of Chrysler-Building answered 38 m in the form of a stainless steel spire. All this was watched by the authors and investors of the empire-promot-boy. As a result, they made a move of the horse: Chrysler-Building stayed with a record holder of 11 months (from May 1930 to April 1931), and then it turned out that the new building went around it the same 200 feet (61 m).

There were problems right there. Dr. Hugo Eccenier, commander of the famous Graf Zeppelin airships and the most authoritative world expert on these courts, categorically declaredthat the project is impractical. To mooring the airships, many ground members of the crew were required, who held the ropes on the nose and in the stern, and even then the landing was sometimes risky. So the docking project in every sense hung in the air at least until March 1931, when Eccenier visited the building and added that this issue requires further study. And in May, the highest building in the world finally opened.

The developers admitted that the device for lifting the airships is not yet ready. The owners of the building could only shoot newsreelson which the aircraft flies over the building, supposedly rehearsing the mooring. In mid -September, another airship was able to dock with a spire of the building for three minutes at a fairly unpleasant speed of the wind of 40 miles per hour (18 m/s). Two weeks later, the third airship delivered a pack of numbers of the Evening Journal newspaper to the spire, where they were lowered on a 100-foot rope to a local employee. A similar event on the next day was unsuccessful. This was the last fixed attempt to use the top of the building in this way. Already in December 1931, NBC began use Belotranslation spire.

In 2015, another authoritative New York edition became interested in legend Wall Street Journal. It talked with Anthony Malkin, the president of the company, which owns one of the most famous buildings in the world. He confirmed that the spire was placed on the building precisely in order to overtake Chrysler-Building. According to him, modern historians adhere to this particular point of view and consider Albert Smith's statements an attempt to disguise his true goal. However, the main misconception is that a airship could be moored here. The fact is that the wind, hitting the building, rises straight up, because of which the airship could not be kept in the air. And the tower scheme popular today is taken from the advertising postcard of the early 1930s:

So the top of the Empire-List-Building, as a puppy mast, was able to find life only in the cinema:

Nevertheless, on paper, similar plans, for all their inconsistency and partially fictitious character, existed, even if they were absent in the original project.