Though no longer the tallest building in the world, the Empire State Building is probably the most well-known and, to many people, the most beloved. It is intimately connected with the history of the [M 001 / United States] as well as the city in which it stands. This graceful structure has risen to an unscalable height in the hearts of people everywhere.
In the 1600s, the City of New York was merely a settlement of a few thousand people on the southern tip of the Island of Manhattan. To the north was untouched land, crisscrossed with creeks. Records show that in 1686 the city granted a "patent" for the land that would one day become the site of the Empire State Building. The site had its first owner: a man listed as "Francisco Bastian, a Negro". Bastian's property covered 15 acres. It was bounded on the west by the Highway (now known as Broadway) and on the east by a swamp. Bastion never farmed the land, and in 1716 his family sold the property to Garrit Oncklebagg, a silversmith.
