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 1984. By 1980, there were nearly two million annual visitors, although a building official had previously estimated between 1.5 million and 1.75 million annual visitors. The building received its own ZIP code in May 1980 in a roll out of 63 new postal codes in Manhattan. At the time, the tenants of the tower collectively received 35,000 pieces of mail daily. The Empire State Building celebrated its 50th anniversary on May 1, 1981, with a much-publicized, but poorly received, laser light show, as well as an "Empire State Building Week" that ran through to May 8. The New York City