New York City's office market. Equitable planned to sell its Sixth Avenue headquarters to get a tax deduction on the new building. The old Sixth Avenue structure would be partially occupied by Paine Webber. Equitable officials were not worried about the fact that Seventh Avenue was not a prestigious executive address. This was a contrast to two decades earlier, when officials had thought Sixth Avenue was "more like Speakeasy Row than Corporate Corridor". While much of the building was to be completed by 1985, the section at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 52nd Street was occupied by an eight-story building and would be delayed. Construction of Equitable Tower had to be closely coordinated to avoid delays or disruptions, since even a one-month delay in completion would cost Equitable $6 million in rent and $3 million in construction loans. Work was complicated by the fact that traffic on the neighboring streets could not be disrupted during construction. On two sides of the construction site, there was only of space within which builders could work, and there was no space for materials to be stored on site. Equitable president John B. Carter announced in May 1985 that a series of artworks would be commissioned for the building. During construction that July, a construction hoist fell from Equitable Tower and killed two workers. Opening and early years By early 1986, Equitable had finished the atrium, galleria, plazas, and lobby, as well as a branch of the Whitney Museum. The company had taken the top third of the building and expected to rent out the remaining stories at a rate of , a higher rate than at nearby office buildings. At the time, there were few tenants for the west tower's vacant space, and Equitable was marketing both the west and east towers as part of the same complex. The building ultimately cost $200 million to construct. A public preview of the new tower's boardrooms took place on February 1, 1986, as part of a benefit event for the Center for Arts Information. The Whitney branch opened on February 11, 1986. Douglas McGill of The New York Times called the Whitney branch the "latest and largest addition to an extensive collaboration between a major art museum and the corporate world." The building was technically owned by Equitable Real Estate Investment Management, which leased space to Equitable for its own corporate offices. Within a