WebProNews

Tag: Empire State Building

  • 2015 Mustang to Top the Empire State Building

    2015 Mustang to Top the Empire State Building

    The 2015 Ford Mustang will hit dealerships sometime this fall, but before it goes on sale the car will be making an impressive journey to the top of New York’s most famous skyscraper.

    Ford this week announced that it will be placing a 2015 Mustang on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. The stunt is one that commemorates an identical stunt that was performed with the 1965 Ford Mustang.

    To perform the engineering feat, Ford has enlisted the help of DST industries to create a special version of the 2015 Mustang that can be taken apart and fitted into the Empire State Building’s relatively small elevators. The team has worked for six weeks to get the Mustang convertible into shape for delivery to the top of the building.

    “When our engineers sat down with the DST team to start plotting this out in mid-February, everyone quickly realized that some old-school craftsmanship would be needed to successfully place this car more than 1,000 feet above the crowded streets of Manhattan,” said George Samulski, design fabrication manager at Ford North America. “The deck is too high to reach with a portable crane from the street, and the spire that towers more than 400 feet above that narrow deck makes helicopter delivery impossible.”

    DST engineers created a mock-up of an Empire State Building elevator in their workshop to ensure the pieces of the Mustang will fit. In addition to each of the pieces fitting into the elevator, each load had to be weighed to stay within the elevator’s weight tolerance.

    Once the vehicle pieces reach the observation deck a DST crew will begin assembling it back together. A subframe has been created to hold all the pieces together and the vehicle should look whole when completely assembled.

    This entire process will have to be done early in the morning within the six hours that the Empire State Building observation deck is closed to the public. The preparations and a time-lapsed run-through of the assembly are previewed in a video today released by Ford:

  • Ford Mustang Celebrates 50th Anniversary at Empire State Building

    Two modern American icons will come together when the latest generation of the Mustang convertible appears on the top of the Empire State Building in April to celebrate 50 continuous years of production of the Pony car by Ford.

    The new, 2015 Ford Mustang convertible will be on display on the 86th floor observatory in the Empire State Building.

    The publicity stunt requires that the car be cut into multiple sections, transported up the elevator on wheeled carts, and reassembled by a technical team in the display area. Because of the building’s stunning height at 1,454 feet, there is no portable crane to make the delivery easier. The spire at the top of the building makes a helicopter delivery equally impossible.

    Ford managed the stunt once before in 1965 using a similar process, but the prototype Mustang displayed then was seven inches shorter and four inches narrower than the new model.

    Working from computer engineering data, team members preparing the display car have found places to make the cuts in the car so everything can be loaded onto custom-made racks that can be rolled into the elevators.

    Once everything is on the 86th floor and uncrated, the technicians will have less than six hours to reassemble the sections.

    “Like all good craftsmen, our team is measuring twice and cutting once to make sure we can get this Mustang up in the elevators,” said Dave Pericak, Mustang chief engineer.

    “Like the team that did this in 1965, the current crew visited the Empire State Building before starting and took careful measurements of its new elevators and doors before cutting up the car,” Pericak said.

    The original Mustang was revealed for the first time in a television ad campaign on April 16, 1964, and then first shown to the public at the World’s Fair in New York on April 17, 1964. The car officially went on sale that day with a record 22,000 orders in sales that first day. More than nine million Mustangs have been sold in the past fifty years.

    Visitors can join the celebration and view the 2015 Ford Mustang on display at the Empire State Building’s 86th floor observatory from from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. on April 16 and 17.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Watch the Empire State Building’s Fancy New LED Light Show

    New York City’s famous landmark, the Empire State Building, is used to being lit up for events – Christmas, Election Day, St. Patrick’s Day, etc. But it’s never seen anything quite like this. The tower now has a new LED lighting system.

    “The state-of-the-art dynamic lighting system from PCK is unique to ESB and allows customized light capabilities from a palette of over 16 million colors in limitless combinations along with effects previously not possible such as ripples, cross-fades, sparkles, chasers, sweeps, strobes and bursts. In addition to greater control and management of the lighting, the new computerized system will deliver superior light and vibrancy levels in real-time, unlike the previous floodlights,” says a release.

    Last night, the debut light show featured two songs by NYC native Alicia Keys.

    People were able to follow along with the light show by tuning their radio dials to one of four different stations, all broadcasting the Alicia Keys’ songs: “Girl on Fire” and “Empire State of Mind.”

    “The Empire State Building’s lights are the international icon of the New York City skyline. We use our tower lights to partner with select charities, organizations, and events around the world,” said Anthony E. Malkin, President of Malkin Holdings which supervises the Empire State Building. “‘Philips Color Kinetics’ new LED lights were installed over the summer and have been set at the color and intensity of the incandescent lights they replaced. As of tonight, our lights’ full range and intensity will be brought to life, forever changing the New York skyline. We wanted to celebrate with and thank New York City and our global audience with a specially choreographed, custom light show.”

  • Lightning Strikes New York’s Empire State Building

    Lightning pictures are always a great sight to see, especially at night or in low-light scenes. Today, Twitter user @KeithOlbermann shared a picture with the rest of the world that is so captivating, it is starting to become viral around the Twitterverse. Have you ever seen a bolt of lightning strike the top of the Empire State Building in New York, NY? If not, look below!

    (image)

    Many Twitter users have been posting reactions to this awesome photo capture:




  • The Empire State Building Joins Facebook And Twitter

    The iconic Empire State Building (ESB) has made a move into social media with the launch of a Facebook Page and a Twitter account.

    On Facebook, people can post comments, share their photos, view images taken by others, purchase tickets and receive news about the building.

    On Twitter, people can follow the ESB Observatory for real-time updates.

     

    Empire-State-Building.jpg

     

    Via Facebook and Twitter, people can stay updated on future events, including the building’s 80th anniversary, which will happen in May 2011. People can also find facts about the building  and regular updates on celebrity visitors. In addition, the social media effort includes information about the building’s tower lights, which commemorate holidays, events and special causes.

    “With the launch of our Facebook and Twitter pages, the Empire State Building looks forward to connecting with fans in real-time and providing instant digital access to the Building," said Anthony E. Malkin, Empire State Building Company.

    "The Empire State Building has always been a symbol of ingenuity and progress, and we recognize the importance of innovating the building itself and the way we communicate to the world."