Editing Empire State Building (section)

=== Contemporary reception ===
Early architectural critics also focused on the Empire State Building's exterior ornamentation.{{sfn|Stern|Gilmartin|Mellins|1987|p=612}} Architectural critic Talbot Hamlin wrote in 1931, "That it is the world's tallest building is purely incidental."<ref>{{cite book |title=The New International Yearbook: A Compendium of the World's Progress for the Year.... |year=1931 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=joI3AAAAIAAJ |page=53 |chapter=Architecture |first=Talbot |last=Hamlin }}</ref> [[George Shepard Chappell]], writing in ''[[The New Yorker]]'' under the pseudonym "T-Square", wrote the same year that the Empire State Building had a "palpably enormous" appeal to the general public, and that "its difference and distinction [lay] in the extreme sensitiveness of its entire design".{{sfn|Stern|Gilmartin|Mellins|1987|p=612}}<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Chappell |first=George S. (T-Square) |date=July 13, 1931 |title=The Sky Line |url=https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1931-07-13 |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=7 |pages=46–47 |url-access=subscription |access-date=November 20, 2020 |archive-date=October 17, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201017211423/https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1931-07-13 |url-status=live }}</ref> Edmund Wilson of ''[[The New Republic]]'' wrote that the building's neutral color palette made it "New York's handsomest skyscraper".<ref name="Gray 1992" />

Architectural critics also wrote negatively of the mast, especially in light of its failure to become a real air terminal. Chappell called the mast "a silly gesture", and [[Lewis Mumford]] called it "a public comfort station for migratory birds".{{sfn|Stern|Gilmartin|Mellins|1987|p=612}} Nevertheless, architecture critic [[Douglas Haskell]] said the Empire State Building's appeal came from the fact that it was "caught at the exact moment of transition—caught between metal and stone, between the idea of 'monumental mass' and that of airy volume, between handicraft and machine design, and in the swing from what was essentially handicraft to what will be essentially industrial methods of fabrication."{{sfn|Stern|Gilmartin|Mellins|1987|pp=614–615}}<!--<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.32106006255894 |first=Douglas |last=Haskell |journal=Creative Art |volume=8 |date=April 1931 |pages=242–244 }}</ref>-->