The comparison
Manhattan's two most iconic towers: the 1931 Art Deco masterpiece versus the 2014 symbolic rebuild. By architectural top, One World Trade Center at 541.3m is 160m taller than Empire State Building at 381m. By honest height, the gap collapses to just 13 metres. Empire State at 373.1m vs One WTC at 386.5m - the same rough altitude, different eras, radically different Vanity Ratios.
Architectural top vs Honest Height
Empire State Building - 2.1% vanity
One World Trade Center - 28.6% vanity
Occupied height. Vanity (non-occupiable structure).Vanity Ratio explained →
The honest take
One World Trade Center was designed to reach exactly 1,776 feet (541.3m) as a patriotic statement. That symbolic number required 154.8m of broadcast antenna and decorative mast above the highest occupied floor. Empire State Building, built 83 years earlier, reached its actual height with 7.9m of structure above the last office floor. The result: Empire State occupies 97.9% of its marketed height. One WTC occupies 71.4%. The 541.3m symbolic height requires a lot of empty air to maintain.
See also: methodology · vanity height · Honest 100