kapusta-
Another political fact-
Former President Gerald Ford was never voted into office. He became vice president when Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 and he became president when former President Nixon resigned.
Two more empire state building facts-
On July 28, 1945 a B-25 Mitchell bomber crashed into the Empire State Building. One of the workers in the building at the time was a newly engaged young woman who thought she was going to perish. This young woman took off her engagement ring and tossed it out the window hoping that at least some one else will find it and use it. She survived, got married and slightly less than 4 years later had a son George. When George (Willig)was 27 he scaled the south tower of the WTC using some home made clamps.
Originally the top of the Empire State Building was supposed to be a mooring mast for blimps. The plan was for passengers to exit the airship, walk along a gangplank (1,250 feet above New York) to a landing platform on the 102nd floor. For many reasons this did not work.
Management hoped to open the 102nd floor for tourism but decided it was too unsafe and chose to open the 101st floor instead. What is now called the 102nd floor is really the 101st (they probably assumed that no one would figure it out anyway and it sounds better for one to say that they went to the top floor of the Empire State Building rather than the second to top floor).
The floor that is open to the public, albeit for an extra fee, is fully enclosed whereas the one above (reached by staircase or elevator) has an indoor and outdoor observation deck (where the passengers were supposed to disembark). The indoor observation deck has a much smaller perimeter (too small for tourism) than the floor below, and they didn’t want anyone on the outside deck so it was never opened to the public.