How designers keep you calm in long queues (it sometimes involves elephants)

Four million tourists flock to the Empire State Building’s world-famous observatory each year to get a glimpse of Manhattan’s landscape. Before they get to the view, however, they often have to contend with more than an hour of waiting in a labyrinth of queues.

“We had two things to offer before: the line and the view,” admits Anthony E. Malkin, CEO of the Empire State Realty Trust. The notoriously long queues have frustrated time-crunched tourists and created a logjam at the Empire State’s office building lobbies. Speaking at the opening of a new visitor entrance yesterday, Malkin explained how he turned to a team of designers and architects to fix the problem.