On May 1,2006,NewYork's Empire State Building celebrated its 75th birthday.When it was built in1931 it was over 61 m taller than its nearest rival,the Chrysler

Building,and at 381mremained the tallest in the world for 41 years,until the World Trade Center wascompleted in 1972- 1973.The story of the Empire State Building begins

with two men's raceto build the highest man-made structure in the world.

In 1889 the centralfeature of the World's Fair in Pairs was Gustav Eiffel's massivetower,constructed with wrought iron,and standing 300m high.Architects in theUnited

States viewed thisas something of a challenge,and by the early 20th century the race was on toerect taller buildings than ever before.Soon skyscrapers were springing up

along the New York sky-line.In1928 the founder of the Chrysler Corporation,Walter Chrysler,announced thebuilding of a huge new skyscraper,taller than anything so far

constructed in NewYork.It soon became clear that the new building was part of Chrysler's aim tochallenge the motoring giant General Motors.So John Jakob Raskob,of

GeneralMotors,decided to race Chrysler to the top.The final height of Chrysler'sbuilding was kept secret until it was completed,so Raskob instructed hisarchitects to

construct thehighest tower they could.Their architectural plans had to be modified as the Chrysler Buildinggrew ever higher,but when it topped 77 stories the Empire State

Building team knewthat they could beat it.

No building projecthas yet exceeded the Empire State Building's record for speed ofconstruclion.From the beginning of construction in March 1930 it took 410 daysand

approximately 7million man-hours to build.It rose at an astonishing speed of 4.5 stories perweek,thanks to careful planning and quality of work.The building was officially

opened on May1,1931,by President Hoover.The Architects inthe United Statesviewed the Eiffel towel as something of a challenge,and decided to buildsomething taller.

A.Right

B.Wrong

C.Not mentioned