The scale of the project was massive, with trucks carrying "16,000 partition tiles, 5,000 bags of cement, 450 cubic yards (340 m) of sand and 300 bags of lime '' arriving at the construction site every day. There were also cafes and concession stands on five of the incomplete floors so workers did not have to descend to the ground level to eat lunch. Temporary water taps were also built so that workers did not waste time buying water bottles from the ground level. Additionally, small railway systems carried materials from the basement storage spaces to elevators that brought the carts to the desired floors, where the carts then delivered the materials across that level directly by using another set of tracks on that floor. The 57,480 short tons (51,320 long tons) of steel ordered for the project was the largest - ever single order of steel at the time, comprising more steel than was ordered for the Chrysler Building and 40 Wall Street combined. According to the historian John Tauranac, the materials for the building came from far and wide, with "limestone from Indiana, steel girders from Pittsburgh, cement and mortar from upper New York State, marble from Italy, France, and England, wood from northern and Pacific Coast forests, (and) hardware from New England. '' Even the facade used a variety of material, most prominently Indiana limestone but also Swedish black granite, terracotta, and brick.
where did the steel for the empire state building come from
Pittsburgh