This morning the Empire State Building took some time to show off its newly renovated Art Deco Lobby and restored historic ceiling mural, with architect Frank Prial (who did the Grand Central restoration) on hand. This is all part of a $550 million historical renovation, the lobby taking about $12.5 million of that. The NY Times reports that the pricey touch up brought back to life "two shiny Art Deco murals that disappeared from view in the 1960s."
While no one wants to see history deteriorate in these landmarks, that's a big chunk of change to lay out! But maybe it all came down to lobby-envy; Anthony E. Malkin, the president of Malkin Holdings, who the building, said then entry had become “a real letdown,” in contrast to others around town.






So cool!
I've always thought that the lobby of the ESB was way more interesting than the view from the top (it's such an ordeal to get up there!).
I love it! I really wish New York would go back to its Art Deco roots instead of all these glass boxes!
One design for the new WTC had a couple of huge Art Deco towers. The critics just dismissed as a pathetic attempt at retro kitsch. In architecture if it's not new it's garbage! At least, according to the critics.
Notice that the design that won was Libeskind's crystal fortress of solitude. Ironically, nothing of that design will get built. Instead we'll get a sad glass box with a steel bottom just like WTC 7. Strangely, that design for the liberty tower is the same one that got blasted as unimaginative (deservedly so) when it was first proposed. That led to the competition, which resulted a fake winner, which resulted in the unimaginative design.
Agree with em and Shinobi.