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 State Development Corporation Harlem State Office Building in 1969 aroused intense opposition from the neighborhood which wanted the resources applied in other ways. Ada Louise Huxtable called the fight "Rockefeller's Vietnam". The term "urban development" took on an negative connotation and in 1995 UDC was renamed the Empire State Development Corporation. Empire State Development Corporation Empire State Development (ESD) is the umbrella organization for New York's two principal economic development public-benefit corporations, the New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC) and the New York Job Development Authority (JDA). The New York State Department of Economic Development (DED) is a department of the New