St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 144

T4 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH TRAVEL SUNDAY, APRIL 30, 2000 cover story New York Continued from Tl Empire State Building From ground level or 86 stories up, this historic edifice is marvelous r- 1 I I v. Visitors enjoy the view toward uptown Manhattan from the observation ward the World Trade Center towers and points in between. Some days, visibility is said to reach up to 80 miles, as far away as Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. This heavenly vantage point is a good spot to reflect on what a marvel this structure is, and how awestruck its first visitors must have been.

The building was conceived in the 1920s at a time when the city's wealthiest businessmen competed to see who could build the tallest buildings. A group headed by former New York Gov. Al Smith and backed primarily by General Motors founder John Jakob Raskob asked architect William Lamb, "How big can you build it so it won't fall down?" By the time excavation began, the Depression was under way. Remarkably, construction took only a year and 45 days. Happy to have jobs, workers tackled the job with purpose seeking to reach a goal of 2 12 stories a week.

In one 10-day period, they built 14 stories. One of the reasons progress was so steady was that when the steel beams arrived in crowded midtown Manhattan after traveling by rail from Pennsylvania, there was no place to put them but where they belonged atop the rising structure. Only blocks away, Walter Chrysler of the Chrysler Corp. had topped off his new Chrysler Building with an Art Deco spire that rose high enough to spur The Empire State Building offers no guided tours, so visitors can experience the world's most famous skyscraper at their own pace. You can start your self-customized tour by standing at the corner of 34th Street and Fifth Avenue and gazing upward in awe at this 69-year-old Art Deco masterpiece.

So what if you look like a neck-craning tourist? No matter how many times you've seen the 102-story Empire State Building from afar, there's nothing quite like the dizzying perspective from ground level. The lobby, off 34th Street, is also worth a long look. The walls and floor are marble the same marble that adorned the lobby when the building opened in 1931. The lobby's focal point looms just above the reception desk, where a large metal mosaic re-creates the Empire State Building. Although there is plenty to see at ground level window exhibits and other artwork, shops, restaurants and a post office (the building has its own ZIP code) the urge is to get to the top as quickly as possible.

After purchasing tickets, visitors take a 45-second ride to the 80th floor, followed by a 15-second ride on a different elevator to the observation deck on the 86th floor. Surrounding a snack bar and souvenir shop, the open-air deck offers views in every direction looking uptown toward Central Park to the north, downtown to deck on the 86th floor of the Empire public relations, says the scene was first shot at the Empire State Building. But back in Hollywood, she says, the result was deemed If you gO Smith and his directors into action. They decided to ensure the Empire State Building's vertical superiority by adding a 200-foot dirigible mooring mast to the top. Although the idea of mooring dirigibles was quickly abandoned too much wind courses through New York's concrete canyons movie-goers would later retain the indelible image of King Kong grasping the mast in one hand and Fay Wray in the other.

The building survived that assault, as well as another in real life in 1945. On a foggy Saturday, a U.S. B-25 bomber, searching for a nearby air field, crashed into the 79th floor. Parts of the plane penetrated seven consecutive Hours: 9:30 a.m. to midnight, 365 days a year, last elevators at 1 1:30 p.m.

Tickets: $7 for adults; $4 for military personnel, seniors and children under 12; free for children under 5. Tickets can be purchased in the building or online. New York SkyRide: It's a virtual reality, simulated helicopter ride through New York City, on the second level of the Empire State Building. Open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

every day. Prices: $1 1.50 for adults and students, $8.50 for children 4-12. Phone: 212-279-9777. More information: Empire State Building, 350 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10118; 212-736-3100; www.esbnyc.com.

Carnegie Hall Coney Island The historic amusement park is a curiosity frozen in time of lore, of love'! and full of music history' nr- walls and exited the opposite side, causing damage to nearby buildings. Among the 13 people killed were the pilot and the two others in the plane. Fortunately, casualties were lower than they would have been on a work day. The only upside to the incident was the statement it made about the structural integrity of the building. "King Kong," released in 1933, lifted the Empire State Building's fame to a new level worldwide, but it's only one of 120 movies in which the skyscraper has appeared.

Among them is "Sleepless in Seattle." Remember the scene at the end that takes place on the observation deck? Lydia Ruth, the building's director of If you go Hours: Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Kiddie Park is open 1 1 a.m. to midnight from May through September, and on weekends on April and October. Astroland is open noon to midnight in the summer and on weekends May and September. In spring and fall, call in advance to be sure the park will be open. Tickets: Admission to the parks is PHOTOS BY RON COBBPOST-DISPATCH State Building.

unsatisfactory, so a new scene was shot out there on a fabricated observation deck. if you go Tours: 11:30 a.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Tickets ($6) can be purchased at Carnegie Hall in the Rose Museum, where the tour begins.

Noteworthy: The facility is still widely used, for events produced by Carnegie Hall and by groups that rent it. Photos are not allowed during tours. More information: Carnegie Hall, 154 West 57th Street, New York, N.Y. 10019; 212-247-7800; www.carnegiehall.org. Beauvais, a singer, dancer and actress, thanking her for helping him escape a horde of young female admirers.

The hall's location in mid-town Manhattan was a suburban, almost rural, area called Goat Farm when Carnegie, a steel magnate-turned-philanthropist, selected it as a site a structure that he hoped would give music a home in New York City. Its U-shaped, main hall, while "not as lavish as some," Unger says, is "part of the reason for the exceptional sound," while fulfilling Carnegie's mandate for "intimacy, elegance and dignity." Before taking visitors upstairs to enjoy the view from the dress circle, Unger allowed us to sit in front-row seats that today sell for $60 to $150. When the hall opened, the price was about $2. The tour continues into a corridor that is lined with photos of many of the greats who have performed at Carnegie Hall, such as Leopold Stokowski, Itzhak Perlman, Andre Koste-1 lanetz and Kathleen Battle. The photos, all inscribed with personal notes of affection for Carnegie Hall, were donated when the hall underwent a $60 million restoration in 1986.

For Unger, it's a hall that is "full of lore, and full of love." Coney Island Museum, with an admission price of 99 cents. More Information: Astroland, 718-372-0275; Deno's Wonder Wheel, i 718-372-2592; Coney Island 1208 Surf Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y. www.coneyisland.com. Nearby: Brighton Beach, aka "Little Odessa" because of its Russian community, is one subway stop to the east. The first question to consider about Coney Island is why to go out there in the first place.

From Times Square in Manhattan, the subway ride through Brooklyn to the Atlantic shore takes an hour, with some 25 to 30 stops along the way. There are only two good reasons to make the trip: history and The world's first roller coaster opened there in 1884, and Coney Island's first amusement park opened in 1895. Coney Island enjoyed its height of popularity after it was connected by subway to Manhattan and Brooklyn in 1920. The Cyclone, a wooden roller coaster that opened in 1927, is still in operation. So is a giant Ferris wheel called Deno's Wonder Wheel, built in 1920.

But the glory days have long since faded. Today, upon arrival, visitors exit through a subway station that is disturbingly old, dark and decrepit. It's a signal that Coney Island will bear no resemblance to Disney World. From the subway station, Coney Island's two amusement parks Astroland and Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park are just a block away, across Surf Avenue. Nearby, the renowned hot-dog stand, Nathan's Famous, was doing a brisk business on the day I visited (the $1.95 hot dog I had was nothing special; Nathan's also serves burgers, sandwiches and seafood).

Although the open-air Nathan's seems to be relatively modern, as fast-food restaurants go, everything else about Coney Island seems to be frozen in the '50s. Astroland, whose signature ride is the Cyclone, was closed for the season in early October, but Deno's Wonder Wheel had yet to call it a year. At the entrance to the park is an indoor attraction called Coneyland USA, whose exterior consists of a wall covered with murals that advertise a "freak show," a clear indication that 1990s sensitivities had not reached Coney Island, much less '80s or '70s sensitivities. When I knocked on the door, I was told that the show, called Sideshows by the Seashore, was closed for rehearsal, and inside a dark interior I could see a dwarf sitting on the edge of a stage. Several hundred feet away, Deno's Wonder Wheel looms over the amusement park that bears its -(-name.

The wheel rises 150 feet and can hold 144 passengers at a time in its caged cars. It is said to It's hard to imagine anyone loving Carnegie Hall more than Betty Unger does. She's a docent at the hall who has been enjoying music there since 1938, when her brother took her on her 15th birthday to see Benny Goodman. She even had her high school graduation at Carnegie Hall, and two decades later she was among those who marched in a show of support for the hall when it faced the possibility of demolition. Her affection for the 109-year-old building at West 57th Street and Seventh Avenue, just south of Central Park, comes through clearly as she leads visitors into the main hall.

"This is where musicians want to be," she says. "This is where they want to perform. Once you're here, you've made it." For the last three years, the main hall has been named Isaac Stern Auditorium. Unger calls him "our second fairy godfather, after Andrew Carnegie." It was Stern, the renowned violinist, who helped save Carnegie Hall in the 1950s. For the past 41 years, he has been president of Carnegie Hall and he still performs in the auditorium.

One of the most arresting photographs among the displays in the hall's Rose Museum shows Stern, Yehudi Menuhin, Leonard Bernstein and Vladimir Horowitz singing "Alleluia Chorus" from Handel's "Messiah" at Carnegie in 1976. Other displays include a Benny Goodman clarinet, Gene Krupa drumsticks and batons used by Georg Solti, Arturo Toscanini, Eugene Ormandy and Bernstein. A copy of the New York World of May 6, 1891, hails in a headline the "brilliant opening of Mr. Carnegie's tone temple." Also preserved for posterity is a hand-written note from Marlon Brando, who then was a young actor living in one of Carnegie Hall's studio apartments, to neighbor Jeanne free. Ride tickets generally cost $2 to $4, and discounts are available by buying a ticket book.

Sideshows by the Seashore: Coney Island's "freak show," at the corner of Surf Avenue and West 12th Street, is $5 for adults and $3 for children under 12. Performances are held on most weekends in the spring and Friday through Monday in the summer. On the building's second floor is the PHIZES Ll AM. The 80-year-old Deno's Wonder Wheel looms over the boardwalk at Coney Island. and the beach and ocean to the south.

The rest of the park some of it run-down, some of it just old consists of rides and arcade games that you'd find at any small-town carnival. The nicest part of the area is the boardwalk and beach, which lie just outside the amusement parks. have given more than 30 million rides. For a $3 ticket, riders go around twice, a total of about seven minutes. When they rise halfway up, the cars begin to swing like a pendulum, and you swear the entire structure is collapsing.

At the top of the ride, passengers can see the Manhattan skyline to the north i.