Illuminated against an ink-dark Manhattan sky, the Empire State Building blazes with a crown of red and white floodlights in this iconic Curteich "Colortone" linen-era view — the tower's 102 stories stepping majestically upward while the surrounding city spreads in a warm grid of amber windows, making visible the sheer vertical ambition of 1930s New York. Completed in 1931 and reigning as the world's tallest structure until 1972, the Empire State Building was already a postcard staple by the mid-1940s, and this Genuine Curteich example (published by Interborough News Co., 825 West 82nd Street, New York) captures it at the height of its cultural dominance. Mailed from New York Station H on August 10, 1945 — just four days before V-J Day and the end of World War II — the card carries a warmly personal message from a piano teacher named Alice (who identifies herself on the card as a pupil of someone), writing to Mr. Banks in Altoona, Pennsylvania, explaining she visited his studio on July 10th, is now teaching piano in New York City with a "lovely class," and apologizes for having missed him — a poignant little human vignette set against the electrifying final days of the war.