Rise of the Empire

There are many buildings in New York City, but none of them are quite as legendary as the Empire State Building. Towering over the New York skyline, the massive edifice seems to capture the essence of the American attitude: that we can build our own world; shape our own destiny.

The Empire State Building is more than just a symbol or a tourist attraction, the building is vertical real estate, a concrete fiefdom. Like a small kingdom, this self contained “empire” has a college, restaurants, banks, businesses, a post office, and even an armed security force. The citizens of this empire have their own passports, and the gates of this city are lined with guards. It is threaded with upright highways; towering shafts of steel and cables that pull their suspended passengers quickly through the kingdom. The vertical city has been the host of foreign dignitaries, from the King of Siam to Queen Elizabeth. In total, the building encompasses approximately 40 acres of vertically terraced land, half the size of Vatican City.

The bowels of the tower’s second basement consist of pale corridors twisting underground. Within this network of halls is hidden a small Christian college, the building’s maintenance crews, and beside them is the throbbing heart of the empire’s security forces, an array of monitors and offices where blue clad soldiers watch over the kingdom entrusted to them, like a barracks for the garrison above.

At street level the tower greets foreigners to its small kingdom with a spectacle of marble and brass, a large aluminum relief of the tower decorating the three story lobby. Retailers spill out into the streets, vending their wares beneath the bulk of 370,000 tons of concrete and steel. Security forces screen visitors to the tower through metal detectors and laptop checks, while the 21,000 denizens of the tower show their passes and continue uninhibited.

Ascending through the tower’s 85 rentable stories (if you have the appropriate security clearance), one encounters an unbelievable variety of businesses: the Boy Scouts Council, Lufthansa Airlines, the Human Rights Watch, medical practices, law firms, accountants, and countless others. Accommodations range from lavish to sparse, some floors look like a palace, others a cheap hotel. There is an intense diversity in the institutions which share the Empire State Building, but they all seem to share a common ideal for prosperity, a culture of success.

The empire’s borders do not cease when the available real estate ends. It thrusts upward, piercing the sky with a massive spire, like a wizard’s tower overlooking New York. From here the populace looks out across the world over which their empire rules, a sea of people, a mountain range of skyscrapers. They, like a mighty seer, partake in a communion of the senses, perceiving all at once the lives of a million and a half souls. It is here, at the top, that the American dream can be seen with piercing clarity; strive ever upwards, for even the sky is no limit.