The Empire State Building - My Visits

The Empire State Building, once the tallest structure in the world, was dedicated 80 years ago on May 1, 1931. I was five years years old at the time, and witnessed the opening ceremonies with my father.

He and his brother, who worked at a Manhattan men's clothing store on 38th Street and Broadway, took me and other family members to 34th Street and Fifth Avenue for the occasion.

I have just a vague memory of the event. I recall the building was truly a skyscraper, big and shiny, rising higher and higher beyond my sight. According to the records, appearing at the dedication ceremony were President Herbert Hoover and then-New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt.

My next visit to the Empire State Building, just 13 years later, was a very different experience. It's still vividly dramatic in my memory. I was a 19-year-old sailor on Saturday, July 28, 1945, and home on leave in Manhattan. I had served on a troop ship in the Pacific during the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in the closing months of World War II.

I was visiting my uncle at his home in Brooklyn, and on that day we had just arrived at his store in Manhattan for his usual 10 a.m. opening. Then, suddenly we heard a loud crashing noise that echoed among the tall buildings from the direction of Fifth Avenue.

I had immediate fearful thoughts of how our ship had fought through Kamikaze air attacks. They were the final suicidal efforts by the Japanese against our ships to prevent American landings. They caused more U.S. Navy casualties in just two months in early 1945 than had been suffered previously in the entire four years of war.
Almost immediately, we heard fire engines and ambulances screaming through the streets on their way to the Empire State Building. A police car nearby had its radio on, and we went over to listen to the breaking news of the disaster. Because I had been through Navy emergency medical training, I told my uncle I would volunteer to help. The policeman told me to hop in and we were at the scene in just a few minutes.

What had happened was the pilot of an Army Air Corps Mitchell B-25 bomber had become confused in thick fog as he was descending for a landing at a Long Island airport, and didn't realize how low he was flying. The airplane hit the north side of the Empire State Building at the 79th Floor. It disintegrated, with one engine passing all the way through and landing on another building below. All three members of the crew and eleven people in the building were killed.

When I arrived at the site, emergency workers were already inside removing the dead, helping the injured and extinguishing the fires. I was assigned to a guard detail of police and servicemen on the sidewalks to make room for equipment, and to control the crowds of onlookers at the scene.

Because the terrible accident happened on a Saturday, many of the devastated offices on the 78th, 79th and 80th floor were empty or with smaller than usual employee staffs. The death and injury toll would have been much higher if it had happened on a weekday.

The memory has been with me ever since. Then, ten years ago, when terrorists crashed commercial aircraft into the World Trade Center buildings, the horrible scenes came back to me. I was reminded of the tragic accident at the Empire State Building on May 1, 1945.