There is a wonderful book out there called “Building the Empire State” by Carol Willis & Donald Friedman. It’s about the construction of The Empire State Building. I liked this book because it focuses on the construction of the building and the project’s general contractor, Starret Brothers and Eken. It’s a great book that anyone involved with the construction industry should read at some point in their carrier, preferably near the beginning.

When you look back on this project relative to today’s standards it was truly incredible what they were able to accomplish. They built the project in 1year 45days (410 days) and had as many as 3,500 workers on site during its busiest time. The book has a lot of information on the developers, architects and engineers however my favorite part is when they talk about the general contractor. I also liked looking back on their daily reports and company notes. Even back then they were practicing what we like to call CYA (cover your ass).  These guys were experts in their field, even by today’s standards. After 80-years of innovation, projects of this size and scope still take much longer to complete. Not sure what that means…

Anyway, check this book out, you’ll be glad you did.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 9th, 2010 at 11:40 pm and is filed under Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.