Empire State Building In a separate transaction, the land underneath the building was sold to Prudential Insurance for $29 million. Helmsley, Wein, and Malkin quickly started a program of minor improvement projects, including the first-ever full-building facade refurbishment and window-washing in 1962, the installation of new flood lights on the 72nd floor in 1964, and replacement of the manually operated elevators with automatic units in 1966. The little-used western end of the second floor was used as a storage space until 1964, at which point it received escalators to the first floor as part of its conversion into a highly-sought retail area. In
Empire Theatre (Rochester, New York) remodeled the Empire Theater Building, and the Jordan Building next door, as part of their temporary retail accommodations following the great fire, while half of the new store was being constructed to the north. Sibley's opened retail operations in the Empire Theater Building and the Jordan Building that month. The Empire Theater Building was finally torn down a year later, its time as a temporary retail facility done. It was replaced by the southern half of the new Sibley store Empire Theatre (Rochester, New York) The Empire Theatre, also known as Wonderland and the Musee, was a theater located at