Empire State Building - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

Film

• Perhaps the most famous popular culture representation of the building is in the 1933 film King Kong, in which the title character, a giant ape, climbs to the top to escape his captors but falls to his death after being attacked by airplanes. In 1983, for the 50th anniversary of the film, a huge 90-foot (27 m) tall inflatable King Kong was placed on the building mast above the observation deck as a skyscraper sculpture by artist Robert Keith Vicino. In 2005, a remake of King Kong was released, set in 1930s New York City, including a final showdown between Kong and biplanes atop a greatly detailed Empire State Building. (The 1976 remake of King Kong was set in a contemporary New York City and held its climactic scene on the towers of the World Trade Center.)
• The 1939 romantic drama film Love Affair involves a couple who plan to meet atop the Empire State Building, a rendezvous that is averted by an automobile accident. The film was remade in 1957 (as An Affair to Remember) and in 1994 (again as Love Affair). The 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle, a romantic comedy partially inspired by An Affair to Remember, climaxes with a scene at the Empire State observatory.
• Andy Warhol's 1964 silent film Empire is one continuous, eight-hour shot of the Empire State Building at night, shot in black-and-white. In 2004, the National Film Registry deemed its cultural significance worthy of preservation in the Library of Congress.

• In the film Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Mount Olympus is located over the Empire State Building, and there is a special elevator in the building to the "600th floor," which is supposed to be Olympus, just like in the book series.
• The building is chosen as Ground Zero for the target of a nuclear bomb that is dropped on New York in the film Fail-Safe.
• Both Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder go to the Oberservation Deck of the Building in the original Mel Brooks film The Producers.
• In the 2002 film The Time Machine, the Empire State Building is still standing in the year 2030, but dwarfed by several larger skyscrapers around it. It is presumably destroyed by pieces of the moon breaking up and hitting New York in 2037 or it decayed over time, as it is never seen again throughout the rest of the film, which takes place 800,000 years into the future.
• In the 2004 film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, the building serves its original purpose of being a docking station for dirigibles, and the Hindenburg III docks at it on its maiden voyage.
• Many films have opened with the Empire State Building, such as West Side Story, Step Up 3D, and The Other Guys.
• The building has been destroyed in many disaster films such as Knowing and The Day After Tomorrow.
• In the movie The Divide, the building is destroyed by a nuclear bomb detonated on New York. It was heavily featured on posters promoting the film.
• Many other movies that feature the Empire State Building are listed on the building's own website.

Television

• The Empire State Building featured in the 1966 Doctor Who serial The Chase, in which the TARDIS lands on the roof of the building; The Doctor and his companions leave quite quickly, however, because The Daleks are close behind them. A Dalek is also seen on the roof of the building while it interrogates a human. In 2007, Doctor Who episodes "Daleks in Manhattan" and "Evolution of the Daleks" also featured the building, which the Daleks are constructing to use as a lightning conductor. Russell T Davies said in an article that "in his mind", the Daleks remembered the building from their last visit.
• In the science fiction drama series Fringe, the observation deck of the Empire State Building serves its primary purpose as a docking station for zeppelins in the parallel universe shown in the second season episode Peter.
• The Discovery Channel show MythBusters tested the urban myth which claims that if one drops a penny off the top of the Empire State Building, it could kill someone or put a crater in the pavement. The outcome was that, by the time the penny hits the ground, it is going roughly 65 mph (105 km/h) (terminal velocity for an object of its mass and shape), which is not fast enough to inflict lethal injury or put a crater into the pavement. The urban legend is a joke in the 2003 musical Avenue Q, where a character waiting atop the building for a rendezvous tosses a penny over the side—only to hit her rival.
• In Gerry Anderson's popular puppet series Thunderbirds, the episode Terror in New York City, the Empire State Building is being moved to a new location as the site around it is set for redevelopment. However, something goes wrong and the building collapses, trapping a reporter and his cameraman underneath the rubble. Their rescue is the focus of the rest of the episode.
• In the Tom and Jerry cartoon "Mouse in Manhattan," Jerry walks by and views the Empire State Building, along with other landmarks (the Statue of Atlas at Rockefeller Center and arriving via train at Grand Central Station).
• The music video of the song "Everything is Everything" (by singer Lauryn Hill) prominently features the Empire State Building as the center of a city (record) turntable.

Literature

• H.G. Wells' 1933 science fiction book The Shape of Things to Come, written in the form of a history book published in the far future, includes the following passage: "Up to quite recently Lower New York has been the most old-fashioned city in the world, unique in its gloomy antiquity. The last of the ancient skyscrapers, the Empire State Building, is even now under demolition in C.E. 2106!".

• David Macaulay's 1980 illustrated book Unbuilding depicts the Empire State Building being purchased by a Middle Eastern billionaire and disassembled piece by piece, to be transported to Saudi Arabia and rebuilt there. The mooring mast is rebuilt in New York, while the remainder of the building is lost at sea.

• The Empire State Building is featured prominently as both a setting and integral plot device throughout much of Michael Chabon's 2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

• In his "biography", Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, the late Philip Jose Farmer theorizes that the skyscraper in which Doc Savage lived and where he met with his comrades, had his laboratories, etc., was the Empire State Building. Since the 86th Floor (mentioned in the Savage stories as his floor) was the Observatory, one may presume that Doc "actually" lived on another floor.

• In the series, "Percy Jackson & the Olympians", Rick Riordan shows the Empire State Building as the headquarters of the Olympian Gods, where the Greek Gods live and also hold their meetings.

• In the children's novel, James and the Giant Peach, at the end of the book the giant peach is dropped onto the lightning rod of the Empire State Building.

• In the sci-fi/alternate history series of novels Wild Cards, the 86th floor is the location of New York's premier chic restaurant, Aces High, a very popular hangout for the superpowered aces.

Other

• A 7.6 feet (2.3 m) scale model built from 12,000 LEGO bricks over 250 hours is featured along with other notable buildings in the LEGO Architecture: Towering Ambition exhibition at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

• World Wrestling Entertainment uses the building on the logo of their Wrestlemania XXIX Pay-Per-View. The event will be held in East Rutherford, New Jersey and features the initials of the states of New York and New Jersey.