Empire State Building Observatory Entrance

Keeping people flowing safely at one of the world’s iconic skyscrapers

Background

When the iconic Empire State Building in New York City unveiled a newly designed entrance for its Observation Deck attraction, Gunnebo was chosen to provide a secure entrance solution for the thousands of daily visitors seeking breathtaking views of the city.

Solution

Working closely with the building owner, Empire State Realty Trust, and the technology integration team, Gunnebo delivered five lanes of highly customized OptiStile 720 Speed Gates, along with three lanes of custom SlimStile SE tripod turnstiles. Both turnstile designs needed to incorporate peripheral technology products that the building wanted integrated into the turnstiles at the new entrance, including barcode scanners, LCD touch screens, Gateway biscuit PCs, hand-held scanners, locked access panels, and custom pamphlet holders.

The highly customized OptiStile 720 turnstile was designed with custom dimensions of 10” (25 cm) in width and 60” (152 cm) in length to accommodate the peripherals and provide the added security and safety necessary for processing the 4 million visitors each year. The custom SlimStile SE turnstiles incorporated many of the same peripherals, and the tripod casework was custom fabricated to match the design aesthetic of the OptiStile 720.