Tightening a bolt on the Empire State Building New York City 1931
by David Lee Guss
Title
Tightening a bolt on the Empire State Building New York City 1931
Artist
David Lee Guss
Medium
Photograph
Description
"The building's Art Deco spire was designed to be a mooring mast and depot for dirigibles. An elevator between the 86th and 102nd floors would carry passengers after they checked in on the 86th floor. The idea proved impractical and dangerous, due to the powerful updrafts caused by the building itself, as well as the lack of mooring lines tying the other end of the craft to the ground. The building's design was expanded to include the mooring mast as part of a competition for the world's tallest building.
A large broadcast tower was added atop the spire in the early 1950s, to support the transmission antennas of several television and FM stations. Until then, NBC had exclusive rights to the site, and beginning in 1931 built various, smaller antennas for their television transmissions.
Broadcasting began at the Empire State Building on December 22, 1931, when RCA began transmitting experimental television broadcasts from a small antenna erected atop the spire. They leased the 85th floor and built a laboratory there, and in 1934 RCA was joined by Edwin Howard Armstrong in a cooperative venture to test his FM system from the building's antenna. When Armstrong and RCA fell out in 1935 and his FM equipment was removed, the 85th floor became the home of RCA's New York television operations, first as experimental station W2XBS channel 1, which eventually became (on July 1, 1941) commercial station WNBT, channel 1 (now WNBC-TV channel 4). NBC's FM station (WEAF-FM, now WQHT) began transmitting from the antenna in 1940. "
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October 31st, 2016
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