ABSTRACT
The Empire State Building is a self-proclaimed “eighth wonder of the world.” The conviction of the building’s principal backer, John Jakob Raskob, founder of General Motors, in this statement was so strong that he commissioned stained glass panels for the lobby showing the Empire State Building as a peer to the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Raskob had a reason to be boastful, when the Empire State Building was finished in 1931, as it stood 1,453 feet 8 and 9/16th inches tall from the street level to its highest point—over 200 feet higher than its famous neighbor the Chrysler Building. 1
