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
Jay Street–MetroTech (New York City Subway) end has a weekday-only turnstile bank and token booth, full height turnstiles, and a wide staircase to MetroTech Center and another stair and four escalators to the former New York City Transit Headquarters, a mostly vacant 13-story building at 370 Jay Street. These escalators were installed as part of a 1952 improvement, as were the squarish "Subway" entrance lamps that are found only in a few other places in the system. These were designed in Art Deco/Art Moderne style. The building itself has a memorial to New York City Transit workers who died in World War II. The entrance/exit at