The only problem is that the photo is a fake. The artful composite illustrates nothing more than the wishful thinking of financier John. J. Raskob and former New York governor Al Smith, the pair that spearheaded the creation of the Empire State Building in the late 1920s. Previously,the building was to top out at the 85th floor, with a flat roof. But the story goes that Raskob looked at a scale model one day and declared, "It needs a hat." After all, the rival Chrysler Building was crowned with a distinctive stainless steel spire.
Unadorned, the Empire State project would reach higher than the Chrysler, but only by few feet. The addition conceived by Raskob's team would add another 200 feet-and it would serve more than a mere ornamental function. It would become a unique airport in the sky.
With legendary showmanship, Al Smith extolled the building taking shape, including its airship-docking role. The press chimed in with talk of "a sensational new era in the history of aviation." By opening day, May 1,1931, the masonry structure sported a cylindrical mooring mast, done up in chrome-nickel steel and faceted glass.
The Empire State Building was completed on time and under budget. Yet for such a well-thought-out building, it was remarkably unprepared for its role as aviation pioneer. Granted, the building's framework was stiffened against the 50-ton pull of a moored dirigible, some of the winch equipment for pulling in arriving ships was installed, and the 86th floor was readied with space for a departure lounge and customs ticket offices. The builder's lawyers even prepared a thick brief, arguing, amongst other things, that owners of neighboring buildings could not sustain a claim of trespass when they found dirigibles overhead. But no one worked out one other problem: wind. The steel-and-glass canyons of Manhattan are an airship captain's nightmare of shifting air currents. Raskob and Smith were inviting the unwieldy craft to come in low and slow, over hazards such as the menacing Chrysler Building spire, and somehow tie up without use of a ground crew. Then, too, if the crew released ballast to maintain pitch control, a torrent of water would cascade onto the streets below. And once secured, a dirigible could be tethered only at the nose, with no ground lines to keep it steady.
Passengers would have to make their way down a stinging gangway, nearly a quarter mile in the air, onto a narrow open walkway near the top of the mast. After squeezing through a tight door, they would have to descend two steep ladders inside the mast before reaching the elevators. "Can you see some of the 75-year-old dowager doing that?" asks Alexander Smirnoff, the current telecommunications director of the building, as he stands on that walkway.
Confronted with such daunting realities, Smith dispensed bland assurances that "there must be some way to work that thing out." He insisted that the US Navy was a partner in the project and its dirigible Los Angeles would dock at the mast. But the navy remained mum. The most it did was allow one of its smaller airships to hover nearby one day at the request of a newsreel company.
Passenger airship service was the province of Germany's Zeppelin Company, and its head, Hugo Eckener, did not hide his skepticism. That's fortunate for New York. Just imagine if the hydrogen-filled Hindenburg had exploded over midtown Manhattan instead of Lakehurst, New Jersey.
Eventually, the press' initial enthusiasm for the docking scheme began giving way to concerns about risk. A Philadelphia newspaper wrote, "Basically the proposal to dock transatlantic airships...hangs on the highly dubious contention that the saving of an hour's time to thirty or forty travelers is of more importance than the assured safety of thousands of citizens on the streets below."
One small airship did drop a long rope to the mast and held on from a distance for a precarious three minutes, and another delivered a bundle of newspapers by rope. After that, the effort was quietly abandoned. But the mast remained, and it eventually became an asset, turning out to be a spectacular radio and television transmitter. It also provided two popular and lucrative observation decks. And it gave the Empire State Building an unforgettable profile.
Finally, the mast became an enduring symbol of human folly. John Tauranac, author of The Empire State Building: The Making of a Landmark, called the airship plan "the looniest building scheme since the Tower of Babel."
-Lester A. Reingold
Air & Space Smithsonian, July 2000
