I remember many many years ago on the forum someone posted a thread basically asking this same question, except, without all the other supertalls existing in New York at the time. It was more like observing what was obvious, that New York was a kingdom of skyscrapers, and the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings were king and queen, and the WTC towers were the palace guards.
It's harder for really tall buildings to have setbacks that are meaningful when they're hundreds and hundreds of feet in the air or more. Also, modern architecture's penchant for blue glass isn't exactly ideal for highlighting that there's even a setback there at all since glass offers little contrast unless you actually have different colored glass, which is rare.
Really tall supertalls are sort of boring in that it's pretty much pointless to pay much attention to detail when designing their facades. Supertalls almost have to rely on their silhouette being unique for them to stand at all, besides merely being tall. Without having broad sections of the facades with different colored glass creating vertical lines or even patterns (think Central Bank Hong Kong) then you're not going to have much of an interesting facade. Also, really tall buildings can't be just any shape they want. More important than anything they have to be aerodynamic.
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Originally Posted by Mr Saturn64
Returning to the original question... I've talked about it before, but the Empire State Building, in my mind, symbolizes New York more than anything else, even the Statue of Liberty. In the general sense, this simply isn't true. The Statue of Liberty, on a general scale, is New York's most famous landmark. But for me, personally, the Empire State Building always captures my attention as I ride the bus or train to New York. I never get tired of looking at it. And no matter how many new buildings surpass it, it's still #1 to me. Architecturally, it's far from my favorite skyscraper in NY. That honor probably goes to 70 Pine Street. But it always keeps my attention. Maybe it's the iconic status. I don't know. Something just draws me in to it.
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I think of the Statue of Liberty more as a national symbol. No doubt it's a New York icon, but to me, it's more of a symbol of America than of New York.