King Kong is one of the greatest feats of cinema and fantasy and great big crazy monkeys. In 1983 Kong was 50 years old. To celebrate, some very clever people decided to re-create the Eighth Wonder of the World!
“A” for Effort, I mean these guys tried very hard. Everything fought against them– bad weather, high winds, getting everything up 100 stories in the air! I mean, wow. But! the Marvel Editorial offices were a few blocks from The Empire State Building. Anyone seeing the 1933 masterpiece will remember that Kong had to get to the highest mountain he could. Anyone working at Marvel knew you could see the building if you could get on the roof. Well… ahem… I knew how to do that.
Refresher course: Marvel was down at 387 Park Avenue located between 27 & 28 Streets. Marvel was on the 10th & 11th floors — yes, believe it or not more offices were needed and the 12th Floor was taken. Then, hold on to your hats, they built a 13th Floor structure on the roof… It was weird. And you had to walk outside on the rooftop to get to the entry (and I never got out there to take pictures… yah, I know). The elevators only went to 12. The Empire State Building is located on Fifth Avenue between 33rd & 34th Streets. So not too far away as the crow flies.
The work on the Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe was chugging along in 1983. Being in the office “late” was a normal situation. And then, right up there was this big beautiful Kong!
This air inflated sculpture of Kong was only up for a couple, three nights. One of them was so rainy, hazy and atmospheric I just had to drag my equipment up the fire stairs and get out on the wet, slimy rooftop. I braced my camera and long lens against something and made two long exposures. I had few expectations because the lighting looked ‘off’ to the eye and who knew what the camera could see. So I called it at two.
This was one of the reasons working at Marvel could be so special. You just had to know there was no alarm on the roof exit…