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 Building the building, John Tauranac writes that the first documented appearance of the tower in popular culture was "Swiss Family Manhattan", a 1932 children's story by Christopher Morley. A year later, the film "King Kong" depicted Kong, a large stop motion ape that climbs the Empire State Building, bringing the building into the popular imagination. Later movies such as "An Affair to Remember" (1957), "Sleepless in Seattle" (1993), and "Independence Day" (1996) also featured the building. The building has also been featured in other works, such as "Daleks in Manhattan", a 2007 episode of the TV series "Doctor Who"; and "Empire",