The Empire State Building is 75 years old today.
While no longer referring to it as the “flash building” (because he watches the camera flashes at night from our bedroom before he goes to sleep each night), when I told the little man it was its birthday today, he commented – not unreasonably – that “they should put 75 candles on top of it,” and wondered why the lights were just plain old white tonight, of all nights.
I wondered too, but it turns out that was the color they were that first night, back in 1931. From Apr 28-30 they were turned out, apparently to represent the skyline before it was built, or at least that bit of the skyline up there at 1,250 feet. Mind you seeing as color wasn’t introduced until 1976 according to the NY Times recently, that’s somewhat misleading.
Nonetheless, happy birthday Empire State Building.