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Empire State Building (1998) . Over 5 feet tall, this was my first LEGO skyscraper ever. It was not very accurate or detailed, but it was a great centerpiece for my LEGO city. . This model is very old (1998). A more detailed model was set up at the top of the real Empire State Building in 2008.
I also built a another Empire State Building model in 2003.
And here's the really old one.
Built from 1998-1999, my first LEGO Empire State Building was over 5 feet tall and contained over 20 floors of offices, stores, and other services for tourists, including a observation deck on the top floor. It was dismantled in 2001 when I moved.
Construction
The building wasnt really designed very well. It was the first skyscraper that I'd ever built, so I did not put a lot of thought into its physical infrastructure. When constructing the building, I originally worked from a VERY small photograph and created a small model out of Lego, at 1/2 the scale of the final building. I now know that I missed a lot of things working from the small photo, and in porting a 1:2 model to the full-size model, I ignored a lot of very important physics. The building was sturdy, but at that size, it needed structural reinforcement under the facade. I never got a chance to rebuild it before it was dismantled in 2001.
Inspiration
The real Empire State Building is a world-famous New York City landmark. It stands as a symbol of New York City and of America. A feat of engineering in its day, the building stood as the tallest in the world for over 40 years, helping New York City earn the nickname "Skyscraper National Park". Today, it serves as an office building, and has a public observation deck on the 86th floor. It has stood as the tallest building in New York City for since its construction in 1931, except while the World Trade Center stood, 1971 - 2001.
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