Top Attractions of Chicago Sears Tower

At the time the Sears tower was constructed in 1974, it was the world's tallest building, eclipsing New York's twin-towered World Trade Center by 25 meters (83 ft). It would keep the title of tallest building in the world until the Petronas twin towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia were constructed in 1997.

 

Sears Tower

 

 

 Ledges on the Sears Tower (Willis Tower)

 

 Sears Tower seen from the Shedd Aquarium

The Tallest

There was much discussion on whether the Petronas Towers are actually taller than the Sears Tower as the height of the antennas on the Petronas Towers are included in the total height, while the height of the antennas are not included in the height calculation of the Sears Tower as they are not considered an actual part of the building.

With the construction of the 508 meters tall Taipei 101 in 2004 this discussion became irrelevant. However, when in November 2013 New York's One WTC was officially declared taller than the Sears Tower - grabbing the coveted title of the tallest building in the US, the issue was brought up once again: one WTC's rather pathetic spire was included in the calculation of its height, so that even though the Sears Tower's roof is a substantial 25 meters (83 feet) higher than One WTC's, the latter is now officially 99 meters (325 ft) taller.

Anyhow, the Sears tower is still the tallest Chicago skyscraper, exceeding the height of the number two, the Trump International Hotel and Tower by 27 meters (89 ft) and the Aon Center by 96 meters (315 ft).

The Structure

 Sears Tower at night

The building consists of nine framed tubes, which are actually nine skyscrapers on themselves taken together into one building. Originally, the plan included no less than fifteen tubes, but when the planned hotel was 

  taken out of the project, only nine tubes were used in the final designs. The nine tubes all reach forty-nine stories. At that point, two tubes end. The other rise up to the sixty-fifth floor. From the sixty-sixth to the ninetieth floor, the tower has the shape of a crucifix. Two tubes, creating a rectangular, reach the full height of 442 meters (1451ft).

Wind Load

The result is an interesting tower, which looks different from all angles. The construction, designed by Fazlur Kahn (1929-82), has other advantages : the construction with separate tubes provides lateral strengths to withstand the strong Chicago wind loads, as each tube only needs to take a part of the pressure.

Observation Deck

The Sears Tower's observation deck - known as the skydeck - is one of Chicago's most popular attractions. At 1,353 ft or 412 m, it's Chicago's

highest observatory, besting the John Hancock Center's by 323 ft (98m).
The most spectacular attraction at the skydeck is 'the ledge', a glass balcony extending 4.3 ft where you can look straight down. It will make most people feel uneasy at first but the balconies offer spectacular views over Wacker Drive and the Chicago River.

Willis Tower

The tower was named after Sears, Roebuck and Co., an American chain of Department Stores which was headquartered here. Sears sold the building in 1993 after moving to the suburbs. The building's name was left unchanged until Juli 16, 2009, when it was renamed Willis Tower for one of the skyscraper's tenants, a British insurance firm. The move was met with local opposition however, and some even started online petitions to protest the name change.

Top attractions of New York Empire State Building

More than any other building in the world, the Empire State Building represents the ambition of humans to build towers that reach for the skies. The skyscraper is probably New York's best known building and can be seen on many postcards.

 

Empire State Building

 

Empire State Building at dusk

 

The spire

 

Looking up

 

The spire at night

The Empire State Building also features in many films, most notably the classic film 'King Kong' from 1933. Even today, though the building has been stripped from its title of the world's tallest building, it is a symbol of New York itself, visited by more than three million people each year.

8th World Wonder

At the time when it was built in the early 1930s on Fifth Avenue, the Empire State Building broke all records and was dubbed 'the 8th world wonder'.
The building had 64 elevators (now 73) and was constructed in only 1 year and 45 days. The skyscraper towered over the neighborhood with its height of 381 meters (1250 ft). As the Empire State Building was one of the last skyscrapers built before the Great Depression hit the real estate market, it wouldn't be topped until 1972, when the twin World Trade Towers dethroned the Empire State Building as the world's tallest building.

Construction

The Empire State Building is built on a full city block. Much of it was occupied by the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, which opened in November 1897 as the city's largest hotel with 1050 rooms. It was one the most prestigious in New York and attracted an upper-class clientele. At the end of the 1920s however, the grand and plush design of the hotel had gone out of style and Waldorf-Astoria decided to build a new, larger hotel uptown.

After the site was cleared, construction started on March 17, 1930. Thanks to an efficient design and standardized work - similar to an assembly line - the building would rise at an average of about four and a half floors a week, faster than any other skyscraper at the time. The building was officially inaugurated on May 1, 1931 in the presence of governor Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Design

The Empire State Building was designed by William Frederick Lamb of the architectural firm of Shreve, Lamb, and Harmon. Lamb, influenced by Raymond Hood's Daily News building, came up with a fairly simple design, defined by requirements such as the budget, time limit and New York City's 1916 zoning law. The building would have a classical composition of a 5 story base, a large tower with setbacks (required by the city's zoning law) and a monumental spire. The limestone facade had little or no ornamentation.
What makes the design so great is that for all its simplicity and sheer bulk it has a perfect composition and massing, giving the building a certain grandeur.

Spire

The building is topped by an enormous spire. It was designed as a mooring mast and would enable dirigibles such as zeppelins to anchor at the top of the building so that passengers could embark or disembark. This proved to be very unpractical however due to the instability of zeppelins and after the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 the idea was shelved.

Great Depression

The Empire State Building was one of the last skyscrapers completed in New York before the Great Depression hit the real estate market. Demolition of the existing building at the site started just weeks before the stock market crash of 1929. After 1933 - when Rockefeller Center was constructed - no tall skyscraper would be built in the city for almost two decades.
As a consequence the Empire State Building held its title of the world's tallest building for more than 40 years. But the Great Depression also caused a collapse in the demand for office space. The owners had such a difficult time leasing office space that the building became known as the 'Empty State Building'. It would take until the end of the 1940s before the real estate market fully recovered and in the early 1950s the Empire State Building even became the most profitable building in New York City.

Observatory

 

View from the observatory

You can visit the Empire State Building's observation deck on the 86th floor from where you have a magnificent view over the city of New York.

The Empire State Building is situated south of Midtown, away from the skyscraper clusters in midtown and in the financial district downtown, so this is one of the few places in Manhattan where you have an open 360 degree view.

If you're looking for the best view of the Empire State Building itself, you better go to Rockefeller Center's observatory.

Top New York Attractions , Brooklyn Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge, built between 1869 and 1883, connects Manhattan with New York's most populous borough, Brooklyn. The bridge is one of the most famous and magnificent landmarks in New York City.

 

Brooklyn Bridge looking from Brooklyn Heights

At the time of construction, Brooklyn - founded by Dutch settlers in the 17th century - was still an independent city. In fact it was even one of the country's largest cities. In 1898, 15 years after the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn citizens decided in a close vote to become a borough of New York.

Construction

 

Brooklyn Bridge

Brooklyn Bridge closeup of arch

 Brooklyn Bridge arch

The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge started in 1869 and took 14 years to complete. At the time many saw the construction of such a large bridge as a folly.
The driving force behind the whole project, John Roebling, was a German immigrant who had worked for the Prussian government as a bridge and road builder. He launched the idea of building a bridge across the East River after he had taken a ferry across the river that ended up stuck in the ice.
John Roebling would never get to see the bridge he had designed: he died after crushing his foot in an accident. He wasn't the only one to lose his life during the construction: 20 of the in total 600 workers died while working on the bridge. The son of John Roebling, Washington Roebling, took over the leadership of the project but he suffered from the caisson-disease as a result of the works on the pillars of the bridge and was on his deathbed during the inauguration. That day, May 24, 1883, about 150,000 people crossed the bridge.

Roebling had not just made a bridge that looked incredibly strong, it also turned out to be just as strong in reality. A mesh of cables of which the four strongest have a diameter of 11 inches (28 cm) are anchored in the ground and keep the bridge from collapsing.

 

Brooklyn Bridge Tower

But even if the four strongest cables would snap, the other cables would still be sufficient to support the bridge. Roebling even claimed that the bridge wouldn't collapse without any cables, it would merely sag.
But even after the inauguration, many New Yorkers were not convinced the bridge was safe. So as to prove the doubters wrong, P.T. Barnum led a caravan of circus animals - including a herd of 21 elephants - across the bridge in 1884.

The Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge ranks as one of the greatest engineering feats of the 19th century and remains one of New York's most popular and well known landmarks.
The impressive bridge spans the East river between Brooklyn and Manhattan and stretches for a length of 5989 ft, about 1.8 km. The span between the large towers measures 1595.5 ft (486 meters). This made the Brooklyn Bridge the world's largest suspension bridge.
The most noticeable feature of the Brooklyn Bridge are the two masonry towers to which the many cables are attached. The towers with large Gothic arches reach a height of 276 ft (84 meters), at the time making them some of the tallest landmarks in New York. Roebling claimed that the monumental towers would make

 

The Footpath

the bridge a historic monument. He was proven right when the bridge officially became a national monument in 1964.

Footpath

An elevated pedestrian path not only gives you the opportunity to cross the river without being bothered by the traffic that rushes past a level below, but it also offers a great view of the bridge's towers as well as downtown Manhattan's skyline. The views alone attract millions of visitors to this bridge each year.

 

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Top attractions of New York Statue of Liberty

For the many immigrants who flocked from Europe to New York, the Statue of Liberty was the first image they saw of the USA. The statue was a gift from the French government for the 100th anniversary of America's Independence.

Design

 

Statue of Liberty seen from above

 

 Statue of Liberty Close-up

 

The statue was designed by a young French sculptor, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, who was striving to build a statue like the great Colossus that once stood at the Greek island Rhodes.

The statue's face was modeled after his mother's and the story goes that the body was modeled after a prostitute.
The crown of Lady Liberty, as the statue is often affectionately called, has seven spikes, symbolizing the Seven Seas across which liberty should be spread. In her left hand she holds a tablet with the Declaration of Independence and in her right hand a torch, symbolizing Enlightenment.

Construction

The statue's steel framework was made by the French engineer Gustave Eiffel, better known as the man behind the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Thanks to an ingenious construction consisting of copper plates attached to the metal framework, the statue is flexible enough to withstand heavy storms. Large iron bars attach the framework to a central pylon.

The Statue of Liberty was constructed in Paris, France. It took nine years before it was completed in 1884 after which it was sent to the USA in 214 crates. Even before the arrival of the statue, Bartholdi himself had traveled to the United States to discuss the location of the statue with president Ulysses S. Grant. Eventually it was decided tot erect the statue at a small island in the harbor of New York City. Today the island is known as Liberty Island.

 

Liberty Island

The biggest and most embarrassing problem was the construction of the pedestal, which had to be paid for by the Americans themselves.
The statue's torch was displayed in Madison Square park for six years - from 1876 until 1882 - in an attempt to spark interest and attract funds. But it was only after publisher Joseph Pulitzer published the names of those who donated money for the project that the funds started flowing in. Eventually, the statue was erected 10 years late, in 1886, when it was officially inaugurated by president Grover Cleveland.

The Statue

 

Aerial view of the Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty is 46,5 meters (151ft) tall and together with the pedestal it reaches a height of 93 meters (305ft). You can take the staircase inside the statue and walk all the way up the 354 steps to the crown from where you have a nice view over New York City.

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