The Empire State Building, which soars 1,250 feet above Manhattan, was built between 1930 and 1931 over 7 million man-hours.
During construction, the skeleton was a vertical structure made up of 210 steel columns, which could only be raised 30 stories at a time. Crowds gathered to watch as unsafe workers moved freely around the cranes and beams. Five workers died during the building's construction, attributed to the lack of safety precautions.