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The owners of the Empire State Building like to promote it as the most famous office building in the world.

But the real moneymaker at the 102-story skyscraper is not the 2.7 million square feet of commercial space occupied by tenants like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

It is the view. The cramped observation decks on the 86th and 102nd floors are startlingly profitable, especially during the holiday season, when tourists swarm the city.

The decks attract four million visitors a year and generated 60 million in profits in 2010, while the owners made little if any money on the office space, according to newly disclosed documents that offer a rare glimpse at the buildings balance sheet.

Once considered just pleasant diversions, observatories like the Empire State Buildings have become real moneymakers.

Credit Chang W. LeeThe New York Times But other real estate magnates were deeply impressed by the revenue from the observatory.

LeFrak, whose family owns 40 million square feet of apartment houses, office buildings and hotels in New York and New Jersey.

People have been making that pilgrimage since they put it up.

In Chicago, the owners of the Willis Tower, formerly named the Sears Tower and the tallest building in the United States, unveiled glass balconies for the observation deck in 2009 that allowed visitors to look straight down, 1,353 feet, onto South Wacker Drive.

Since then, attendance has jumped 28 percent, to an estimated 1.4 million this year.

Top of the Rock, the observatory at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, reopened six years ago after a long dormancy and now pulls in 2.5 million visitors a year and a 25 million profit, according to real estate executives who have been briefed on the project.

Eight companies are vying to operate what would be the largest and highest observation deck in the city the one at, the 1,776-foot tower under construction in Lower Manhattan.

Five high-speed express elevators are expected to whisk five million visitors a year to a three-level observatory on Floors 100 through 102.

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