Some famous architecture is celebrating an anniversary this week ...

Some famous architecture is celebrating an anniversary this week. The lights went on for the first time at the Empire State Building on May 1, 1931 when President Hoover pressed a button to electrify the building as part of its dedication ceremony.

The 102-story building, which had begun construction on January 1930, was the first skyscraper to rise to over 1,250 feet and retained its title as the world's tallest skyscraper until 1954. The building's construction was financed in part by John Raskob, a financial executive for the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. and General Motors. Raskob was motivated in part by a rivalry; at the time construction began, the tallest building in the world was the Chrysler Building, built by Walter Chrysler, the head of the Chrysler Corporation.

Unfortunately for Raskob and his business partner, former New York governor and 1928 Democratic presidential candidate, Al Smith, the Empire State Building's opening during the Great Depression limited occupancy; it had so few tenants it was jokingly referred to as the "Empty State Building". The costs and losses strained even Raskob's immense fortune, bringing him close to financial ruin. By 1938, with the Empire State, Inc. company on the verge of bankruptcy, Raskob turned to his former employer, colleague, and friend P.S. du Pont, who had been one of the original investors in the building. P.S. du Pont agreed to sell the company a very large annuity-bearing life-insurance policy held jointly with his wife Alice Belin du Pont.

This policy saved the business. In the years after the Great Depression, large and notable businesses began to occupy what had become a major tourist attraction, and the building became on of the world's world’s most profitable commercial buildings. The Empire State Building became the core of Raskob's wealth in his last years as well as the funding source for his philanthropic efforts.

This photograph shows the Empire State Building on July 3, 1939, as captured by the Dallin Aerial Surveys company. The company, founded in 1924 by Colonel J. (John) Victor Dallin (1897-1991), specialized in aerial images of factories, private estates, schools, country clubs, towns, airports, rivers, and many other sites and some news events of the day. The majority of the photographs concentrate on the Mid-Atlantic region covering a period from 1924 to 1939 although Dallin did make trips to other locales within the United States.

To view more images from Hagley Library's collection of Dallin Aerial Survey Company photographs (Accession 1970.200), click here to visit its page in our Digital Archive. Hagley Library also has significant collections related to John Raskob and the Empire State Building. To view selections from our John J. Raskob papers (Accession 0473) collection, you can click here. You can also find a collection of Oral history interviews with John J. Raskob family (Accession 2004.208) here.