Empire State Building

This guide to the Empire State Building in New York City returns to a foggy Saturday morning in 1945, when a B-25 bomber pilot named Lieutenant Colonel William Smith flew blind into the building's north side, killing fourteen people and barely denting its steel frame. You'll meet Betty Lou Oliver, a twenty-year-old elevator operator badly burned in the blast, whom rescuers placed in another elevator to carry her to safety, not knowing the crash had already severed its cables. The guide picks up as that elevator begins its fall.