I got down on my knees and crawled to one of the binocular machines. I held it tightly as I pulled myself up, and I took a quarter from the change dispenser on my belt. When the metal lids opened, I could see things that were far away incredibly close, like the Woolworth Building, and Union Square, and the gigantic hole where the World Trade Center was. I looked into the window of an office building that I guessed was about ten blocks away. It took me a few seconds to figure out the focus, but then I could see a man sitting at his desk, writing something. What was he writing? He didn't look at all like Dad, but he reminded me of Dad. I pressed my face closer, and my nose got smooshed against the cold metal. He was left-handed like Dad. Did he

have a gap between his front teeth like Dad? I wanted to know what he was thinking. Who did he miss? What was he sorry for? My lips touched the metal, like a kiss.

I found Mr. Black, who was looking at Central Park. I told him I was ready to go down. "But what about Ruth?" "We can come back another day." "But we're already here." "I don't feel like it." "It'll just take a few—" "I want to go home." He could probably tell that I was about to cry. "OK," he said, "let's go home."

We got at the end of the line for the elevator.

I looked at everyone and wondered where they came from, and who they missed, and what they were sorry for.

There was a fat woman with a fat kid, and a Japanese guy with two cameras, and a girl with crutches whose cast was signed by lots of people. I had a weird feeling that if I examined it I would find Dad's writing. Maybe he would have written "Get better soon." Or just his name. An old woman was standing a few feet away, staring back at me, which made me self-conscious. She was holding a clipboard, although I couldn't see what was on it, and she was dressed old-fashioned. I promised myself I wouldn't be the first to look away, but I was. I pulled on Mr. Black's sleeve and told him to look at her. "You know what," he whispered. "What?" "I bet you she's the one." For some reason, I knew he was right. Although no part of me wondered if maybe we were looking for different things.

"Should we go up to her?" "Probably." "How?" "I don't know." "Go say hello." "You can't just go say hello." "Tell her the time." "But she didn't ask the time." "Ask her the time." "You do it." "You do it." We were so busy arguing about how to go up to her that we didn't even realize that she had come up to us. "I see that you're thinking about leaving," she said, "but could I interest you in a very special tour of this very special building?" "What's your name?" I asked. She said, "Ruth." Mr. Black said, "We'd love a tour."

She smiled, took a huge breath in, and then started walking while she talked. "Construction on the Empire State Building began in March of 1930, on the site of the old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, at 350 Fifth Avenue at Thirty-fourth Street. It was completed one year and forty-five days later—seven million man-hours of work, including Sundays and holidays. Everything about the building was designed to expedite its construction—prefabricated materials were used as much as possible—and as a result, work progressed at a rate of about four and a half stories each week. The entire framework took less than half a year to complete." That was less time than how long I'd been searching for the lock.

She took a breath.

"Designed by the architectural firm of Shreve, Lamb, and Harmon Associates, the original plan called for eighty-six stories, but a 150-foot mooring mast for zeppelins was added. Today the mast is used for TV and radio broadcasts. The cost of the building, including the land that it rests on, was $40,948,900. The cost of the building itself was $24,718,000, less than half of the estimated cost of $50,000,000, due to deflated labor and materials costs during the Great Depression." I asked, "What was the Great Depression?" Mr. Black said, "I'll tell you later."

"At 1,250 feet, the Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world until the completion of the first tower of the World Trade Center in 1972. When the building was opened, they had such a hard time finding tenants to rent space within it that New Yorkers began calling it the Empty State Building." That made me crack up. "It was this observatory that saved the building from going into bankruptcy." Mr. Black patted the wall, like he was proud of the observatory.

"The Empire State Building is supported by 60,000 tons of steel. It has approximately 6,500 windows and 10,000,000 bricks, weighing in the neighborhood of 365,000 tons." "That's a heavy neighborhood," I said. "More than 500,000 square feet of marble and Indiana limestone encase this skyscraper. Inside, there is marble from France, Italy, Germany, and Belgium. In fact, New York's most famous building is made with materials from just about everywhere but New York, in much the same way that the city itself was made great by immigrants." "Very true," Mr. Black said, nodding his head.

"The Empire State Building has been the location of dozens of movies, the reception site of foreign dignitaries, and even had a World War Two bomber crash into the seventy-ninth floor in 1945." I concentrated on happy, safe things, like the zipper on the back of Mom's dress, and how Dad needed a drink of water whenever he whistled for too long. "An elevator fell to the bottom. You'll be relieved to know that the passenger was saved by the emergency brakes." Mr. Black gave my hand a squeeze. "And speaking of elevators, there are seventy of them in the building, including the six freight elevators. They travel at speeds from 600 to 1,400 feet per minute. Or, if you so choose, you can walk the 1,860 steps from the street level to the top." I asked if you could also take the stairs down.

"On a clear day like this, you can see for eighty miles—well into Connecticut. Since the observatory opened to the public in 1931, almost 110 million visitors have enjoyed the breathtaking vision of the city beneath them. Each year, over 3.5 million people are whisked to the eighty-sixth floor to be where Cary Grant waited in vain for Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember, where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan had their fateful meeting in the movie Sleepless in Seattle. Also, the observatory is handicap accessible."

She stopped and put her hand on her heart.

"All in all, the feeling and spirit of New York City is embodied in the Empire State Building. From the people who fell in love here, to the ones who have returned with their children and grandchildren, everyone recognizes the building not only as an awe-inspiring landmark which offers one of the most spectacular views on earth, but an unequaled symbol of American ingenuity."

She bowed. We clapped.

"Do you young men have another minute?" "We have a lot of minutes," Mr. Black said. "Because that was the end of the official tour, but there are a couple of things I really love about this building, and I only share them with people I suspect will care." I told her, "We'll care incredibly much."

"The dirigible mooring mast, now the base of the TV tower, was part of the original construction of the building. One attempt to moor a privately owned blimp was successful. But during another attempt, in September 1931, a navy blimp was almost upended, and nearly swept away the celebrities attending the historic affair, while the water ballast drenched pedestrians several blocks away. The mooring mast idea was ultimately abandoned, although it was very romantic." She started walking again, and we followed her, but I wondered if she would have kept talking even if we hadn't followed her. I couldn't tell if she was doing what she was doing for us, or for herself, or for some completely other reason.