The first place you go in NYC has to be the Empire State Building, right? We’d just been to Disneyland (California Adventures) and been on the Tower of Terror, which is a much shorter elevator ride, compared to this real-life adventure which, among all it’s other features (height, view, etc) is a stunning piece of art deco architecture. I’d been there 30 years ago and not much has changed, except that the World Trade Center is not there any more and that is a poignant reminder of what the world has been through in the past eight years.
The Empire State Building has 102 floors if you go all the way to the upper observatory. We only went to the 86th floor deck, but still stupendous views. One sad note – you could see to the south the entire Hudson River, including all the rescue equipment for the recent helicopter/plane crash.
My favorite photo of the day was from here too. On floor 80, while we were queuing around yet again (ESP has 73 elevators, and we swear there were about 73 lines too) we saw this series of windows with frosted glass on the bottom. I guess they want to be sure you pay for and go all the way to the deck for the E-ticket views. These windows were very Rene Magritte to me.
