Initially spire Empire State Building was designed as a mast for dirigibles

The famous 102-story skyscraper Empire State Building, located on the island of Manhattan, is the tallest building in New York. It is used as a business center, but during the construction of the city was planning to receive additional benefit from it.

It was assumed that the spire of the building will be a mooring mast for dirigibles. 102nd floor was designed in a way that would have coped well with the role of the mooring platform with similar lifting on the airship. Check-in was to be made on the 86th floor, where people delivered to the platform dedicated high-speed elevator.

However, a serious obstacle to the realization of this idea were the adverse weather conditions - the airship could not moor to the spire of the building due to heavy and unstable air flow at such a height. This became clear after the first attempt to dock a zeppelin, and in 1952, the owners of the building completely abandoned the idea. On-site registration for the terminal telecommunications equipment placed, and the spire has since served as a simple decoration.

via factroom.ru