How tall is the Empire State Building, including its antenna, in feet?
Guess before you scroll — the answer is below
The answer
1,454 feet
Roughly 1.5K.
The Empire State Building reaches 1,454 feet to the tip of its antenna, and 1,250 feet to the roof. It was built in just 410 days during the Great Depression and held the title of world’s tallest building for 40 years — longer than any other structure of the modern era.
How to get close to this number
Use the floor count and multiply. This site's companion question gives a hundred and two floors, and a commercial storey of that era is a little under four metres — which gives a roof height of around three hundred and eighty metres, or about twelve hundred and fifty feet. Add the antenna for the figure asked.
The roof-versus-tip distinction is the recurring ambiguity in tall building questions: the building measures twelve hundred and fifty feet to the roof and over fourteen hundred to the antenna tip. Which number is quoted depends on the convention, and rankings shift depending on whether spires and antennas count.
The construction detail is the one that does not sound possible: built in four hundred and ten days, during an economic depression. That is a rate of roughly a floor every four days on a building of that height, achieved with 1930s equipment — and no comparable structure has been built that fast since.
Where this number comes from
| Source | Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat |
|---|---|
| Figure refers to | 1931 |
| Last checked | |
| Unit | feet |
Numbers move. If this one has drifted from its source, let us know.
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