2. King Kong Crashes into Empire State Building
Photo by Evan Joseph courtesy Empire State Building
As part of a brand new museum space inside the Empire State Building, King Kong comes crashing in the windows. The culmination of a $165 million transformation, the Observatory Experience allows visitors to the famed observatory on the 86th floor to will walk through a museum experience and take a journey into the history of the great skyscraper – all instead of waiting on a long line to get to the top. As visitors walk through the exhibit, they will have the opportunity to see back in time to the history of the skyscraper’s construction and the extraordinary construction process that made it unprecedented for its time.
One part of the exhibit focuses on the giant body of movies and media in which the Empire State Building has starred. One room is surrounded by windows showing what the view from the top observatory would have looked like in the ’30s, while a moving King Kong appears to peer back at you from his perch outside. Cooper said of the process, “They took us out onto these ledges on [floors] 87 and 88 to do filming for construction. The constructed area is a photograph of the city that’s then been converted back to the 1930’s…by photoshopping the background.” In addition to King Kong and historical exhibitions, visitors can experience a recreation of an original elevator, a design by Otis that was groundbreaking for its time.