7. Equitable Life Insurance Building

View from outside 787 Seventh Ave.

Located in the atrium of the Equitable Building (also known as the AXA Center) at 787 Seventh Avenue is a Roy Lichtenstein mural painting. At 68-feet high, Mural with Blue Strokes is one of the country’s largest public art works. Due to its sheer size, it was painted right there in the building itself beginning in December 1985 through January 1986.

According to the New York Times, Lichtenstein climbed up and down an eight-story scaffolding. The work is a collage of images borrowed from the work of some of this century’s leading modern artists and some of Lichtenstein’s own work. The mural “tackles comic strips and the history of modern art.”