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
Transportation in New York (state) and heavily used routes in the Amtrak system are those on the Northeast Corridor, which include the "Acela Express", "Metroliner", and "Regional". Amtrak's "Empire Service" trains provide frequent daily service along the 460-mile (740 km) Empire Corridor between New York City and Niagara Falls. The route was formerly the Water Level Route of the New York Central Railroad to Buffalo and then the former Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad. One train, known as the "Maple Leaf", continues beyond Niagara Falls to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Recently, the state has taken more interest in increasing the frequency and speed of intercity rail,