The Empire State Building was conceived at the climax of the Roaring '20s. The world had emerged from the nightmare of a world war, with death tolls in the millions and destruction wreaked by the awesome military machines and technology, including airplanes and poison gas. Postwar prosperity restored people's spirits. Science, now devoted to peaceful purposes, promised to propel the human race into a new futuristic age with untold wonders: air travel, labor-saving machines and robots, as well as power from the heart of the atom itself.
Then ... crash! The collapse of Wall Street on October 24, 1929, dashed the world's hopes and plunged it swiftly into economic depression. Jobs were lost and stocks lost their value.
No doubt, part of the eternal appeal of the Empire State Building comes from the era in which it was born. As the nation's hopes fell, along with its stock prices, the Empire State Building rose, almost in defiance of reality. To many observers, the swift-rising building, clad in its coat of pearly limestone, seemed to glow with optimism. Some people saw the building and took heart, almost as if - because of its dizzying height - the Empire State could peer into a more peaceful, prosperous future.
Because of the economy, many projects launched in the boom of the '20s were abandoned. However, the investors in the Empire State Building, buoyed by a loan from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, stuck to their guns and ordered work on the project to continue. The construction kept thousands of people employed; some workers earned as much as $15 a day.
