If you’ve ever stood on the corner of 34th and 5th, craning your neck until your spine pops just to see the spire of the World's Most Famous Building, you’ve probably wondered what happens in the middle. Everyone knows the lobby with its gold leaf and Art Deco flair. Everyone knows the 86th-floor observatory where you freeze your nose off for a selfie. But the 64th floor Empire State Building space is a different animal entirely. It’s not for tourists. You can’t buy a ticket to it. Honestly, it’s where the actual work of New York City happens, far away from the souvenir keychains and the King Kong plushies.
Most people think of this skyscraper as a vertical museum. It’s not. It’s a massive, breathing office engine.
The 64th floor sits in a weird transition zone of the building’s architecture. As the elevators hum and the air pressure makes your ears do that little click-dance, you’re passing through a level that has seen everything from high-stakes corporate law firms to massive tech infrastructure. It's about two-thirds of the way up the primary "trunk" of the tower before it tapers off into the iconic setbacks.
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The 64th floor Empire State Building isn't some dusty storage unit. It’s premium real estate. Over the last decade, the Empire State Realty Trust (ESRT), led by Anthony Malkin, spent over $500 million retrofitting the whole place. They didn't just paint the walls. They ripped out the guts of the building. We’re talking about massive upgrades to energy efficiency that would make a Tesla engineer weep.
Why does this matter for the 64th floor?
Because when you’re that high up, the wind literally tries to whistle through the window frames. The ESRT actually set up a whole factory inside the building to refurbish all 6,514 windows. They added a film and gas fill to every single pane. If you're sitting in an office on 64, you're benefiting from a sustainability project that reduced the building's energy use by nearly 40%. It's quiet. It's surprisingly still.
Who actually works there?
It changes. That's the thing about New York real estate. One year you have a major fragrance house, the next it’s a global logistics firm like Li & Fung. For a long time, the mid-60s floors were known for housing companies like LinkedIn before they expanded and moved.
Currently, the floor is designed for high-density, high-end commercial use. Think polished concrete floors, exposed ceilings that show off the original 1931 rivets, and "white-box" builds that are ready for a multi-million dollar tech startup to move in. It’s about 25,000 to 30,000 square feet of space. That’s a lot of room for espresso machines and ergonomic chairs.
The View from 64 vs. The Observatory
Look, the 86th floor is great for the "I'm on top of the world" feeling. But the view from the 64th floor Empire State Building is actually more "New York."
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At the 86th or 102nd floor, everything looks like a toy set. People are ants. Cars are those tiny micro-machines. But on 64? You’re still in the thick of the skyline. You’re eye-level with the tops of the neighboring skyscrapers in Midtown. You can see the detail in the gargoyles on the buildings across the street. You see the steam rising from the vents in the roofs below you. It feels connected to the ground while being high enough to see the shimmer of the Hudson River to the west and the East River toward Brooklyn.
It’s the "Goldilocks" height. Not too high to be detached, not too low to be noisy.
Infrastructure and the "Billion Dollar" Elevator Ride
Getting to 64 isn't as simple as hitting a button in the main lobby. The Empire State Building uses a banked elevator system. You have to know which bank serves the 60s. The elevators themselves are a marvel of engineering. They use a regenerative braking system. Basically, when the elevator slows down, it captures that energy and feeds it back into the building’s power grid.
It’s fast.
Your stomach stays on the lobby floor for a second while your body is already passing the 20th. By the time you hit the 64th floor Empire State Building, you’ve traveled several hundred feet in under a minute.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Middle Floors
People think these floors are just generic boxes. They aren't. Because of the way the building was constructed during the Depression—literally built in a year and 45 days—the steel work is incredibly dense.
There’s a myth that the building is swaying feet in either direction. Honestly? It barely moves. The 64th floor is rock solid. You could balance a nickel on its edge on a windy day, and it probably wouldn't tip. The masonry and the sheer weight of the limestone and granite keep the mid-section of the building incredibly stable.
Another misconception? That it’s "old" inside.
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If you walked onto the 64th floor today, you wouldn't see 1930s mahogany and rotary phones. You’d see MERV 13 air filters. You’d see bipolar ionization systems that kill viruses in the air. The ESRT has turned these middle floors into some of the "healthiest" buildings in the world, receiving the WELL Health-Safety Rating. It’s probably cleaner air than what you’re breathing in a park in Queens.
The Ghost of the 1945 B-25 Crash
You can't talk about the middle-upper floors without mentioning the 1945 crash. On a foggy Saturday in July, a B-25 Mitchell bomber slammed into the north side of the building.
It hit the 78th and 79th floors.
While the 64th floor wasn't directly impacted by the debris of the plane itself, the entire building felt it. One of the engines flew clear through the building and landed on the roof of a penthouse on the next block. An elevator cable snapped, and a woman named Betty Lou Oliver plunged 75 stories in an elevator car and survived.
When you stand on the 64th floor Empire State Building today, you’re standing in a structure that took a literal bomber hit and didn't flinch. That’s the kind of over-engineering you just don't see in modern glass towers.
The Business of the View
So, why would a company pay the massive rent for the 64th floor?
- The Address. "350 Fifth Avenue, 64th Floor" is a hell of a business card.
- The Amenities. Tenants get access to a 15,000-square-foot fitness center and a tenant-only lounge.
- The Light. Because the building is a "wedding cake" style structure, the light hits the 64th floor beautifully. There are no shadows from taller buildings right next door because the Empire State is the giant.
The Modern Layout
The floor plates are typically "center core." This means the elevators, bathrooms, and stairs are all in the middle. The office space rings the outside. This ensures that every single person working on that floor has a window view. No one is stuck in a dark cubicle in the bowels of the building.
The ceilings are high. The windows are large. It’s an environment built for productivity, but let’s be real—most people probably spend the first twenty minutes of their morning just staring at the Chrysler Building.
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How to actually see the 64th floor
If you aren't an employee of a firm leased there, you generally can't just wander in. Security at the Empire State Building is tighter than an airport. You have to go through a scan, have a programmed badge, and be on a visitor list.
However, for those interested in the architecture, the building occasionally participates in "Open House New York." Sometimes, vacant floors that are between tenants are showcased to brokers and the public. If you're lucky enough to catch the 64th floor Empire State Building during a transition period, you can see the raw "bones" of the building.
It’s a forest of steel and rivets.
Making Sense of the Heights
To put it in perspective:
- Lobby: Art Deco masterpiece.
- Floors 2-5: Massive retail and "The Empire State Building Experience" (the museum part).
- Floors 6-85: Commercial office space (where our 64th floor lives).
- Floor 86: The Main Deck (the one in the movies).
- Floor 102: The Top Deck (the indoor one).
- Floor 103: The secret "VIP" balcony (no railing, very scary).
The 64th floor is the heartbeat of the commercial side. It represents the transition from the lower, wider base to the soaring upper reaches.
Practical Steps for the Curious
If you are a business owner looking to lease, or just a skyscraper nerd, here is how you "interact" with the mid-level floors:
- Check the ESRT Website: They often post 3D virtual tours of available floors. You can virtually "walk" through the 60th-70th floors to see the exact layout and views.
- Look Up at Night: The lights you see on the 64th floor are usually white or "office" light, contrasting with the vibrant LED colors of the spire. It’s a reminder that while the top is a show, the middle is a job.
- Visit the 80th Floor: When you go to the observatory, the "Dare to Dream" exhibit is on the 80th floor. This gives you a very similar "mid-high" perspective to what the workers on 64 see every day.
The 64th floor Empire State Building serves as a silent witness to the city's evolution. It’s survived the Great Depression, a world war, the rise of the internet, and a global pandemic. It remains one of the most prestigious patches of carpet in the world.
If you ever get the chance to step out of the elevator at that level, take a breath. The air feels different. The city looks different. It’s the precise point where New York’s history meets its daily grind.
Next Steps for Your Visit:
If you want to experience the vibe of the 64th floor without a keycard, book a "Sunrise Experience" ticket for the 86th floor. As you ascend, pay attention to the elevator floor indicator. When it hits 64, look at your watch. You’ve just passed through the "working" heart of the icon. To see the specific architectural layout of these mid-tier floors, search the official Empire State Realty Trust "Leasing" portal where they provide floor-by-floor blueprints and bird’s-eye-view photography of the suites.