Left image from Lime Contracting. Right image from TheMechanism

Mostly everyone has seen King Kong (and we’re not talking about that stupid remake done a couple of years ago). But 30 years ago, people apparently saw him in real life. The Lime Contracting Company was doing renovations on the Empire State Building in 1983 when they were asked to take part in the 50th anniversary of the great movie. It was obviously a publicity stunt, and the image made newspapers and most likely another marketing campaign to milk some extra revenue from the film. And like that, Kong rose again to an staggering 82 feet high–and probably scared the bejesus out of some kids down below.

When the remake hit theaters in 2005, it was all CGI instead of the real thing. Corbis has an image of the 1983 scaling in color on their website.

Via Gothamist