Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 21, 1991 TAG: 9104210302
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By ANDREW L. YARROW/ THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long
Although such vistas are normally restricted to high-flying birds, New Yorkers and visitors can find their own sky-high perches at observation decks atop several skyscrapers and other buildings, or soar above the city by helicopter.
These eagle's-eye vantage points offer a very different perspective on New York from the one at ground level. The observation decks are also among the city's best tourist bargains.
Breathtaking skyline views can also be had from Circle Line boat cruises, the Brooklyn Bridge walkway, the Roosevelt Island tram, the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, Liberty and Ellis Islands.
But nothing quite equals the vistas, sensations and photo opportunities from the observatories at the Empire State Building and World Trade Center.
Empire State Building
As an architectural symbol of America, probably not even the Capitol in Washington or the Statue of Liberty are as renowned as the Empire State Building. This magnificent Art Deco tower rises 102 stories above 34th Street and Fifth Avenue, and its observatory has welcomed more than 70 million visitors since 1931.
When the building opened during the depths of the Depression, its office-vacancy rate was so high that the owners relied on income from the observation deck to pay their taxes.
The observatory was conceived as a temporary gimmick, with the deck eventually to become a hub for what was thought to be the transportation wave of the future - dirigibles. The 102nd floor was designed as a dirigible waiting room, according to Laura Fries, the observatory's director, although only two of the unwieldy airships were ever moored atop the building.
Instead the small, enclosed area on the 102nd floor and a larger indoor-and-outdoor viewing deck on the 86th floor have become permanent and immensely popular attractions.
The building boasts a welter of superlatives and gee-whiz statistics. It is 1,454 feet to the top of the lightning rod that King Kong once clasped, although mere mortals can only go 1,050 feet up to the 86th-floor deck or 1,250 feet above midtown to the 102nd-floor observatory.
For more than 41 years, until the World Trade Center opened, this was the undisputed champ: the world's tallest building.
Nighttime visits (until nearly midnight) offer an especially romantic vista. Many weddings have been performed at the observatory, and undoubtedly many more proposals have been proffered and trysts arranged there.
(Remember the tear-jerking, midnight scene at the observatory in Leo McCarey's 1939 film "Love Affair" or his 1957 remake, "An Affair to Remember"?)
But, whether you go late at night or at midday, the views can be incomparable.
Looking north, the tableau includes Rockefeller Center, Central Park, the George Washington Bridge and even Yankee Stadium. To the east is a mass of midtown skyscrapers, most notably the delicate spire of the Chrysler Building and such modernist landmarks as the United Nations.
Beyond the generally low and dreary buildings to the west is the Hudson River and as much of northern New Jersey as can be seen depending on weather.
In some ways, the most intriguing views are to the south, where the historic precincts of Chelsea, the Flatiron district, Greenwich Village and SoHo suddenly end with a wall of gleaming financial-district high-rises.
World Trade Center
Most prominent amid this steel-and-concrete forest are the two towers of the World Trade Center.
These stark, blocklike structures, finished in 1970, were briefly the world's tallest buildings until the Sears Tower in Chicago and the CN Tower in Toronto were completed in the mid-1970s.
However, the 1,377-foot-high observatory above the 110th floor of Two World Trade Center can still rightfully claim to be the world's highest open observation platform.
What the mammoth office complex may lack in romance, its observation deck makes up for with its views.
The experience begins with the elevator, which soars from the mezzanine to the 107th floor in a stomach-wrenching 58 seconds. Both the enclosed deck on the 107th floor and the open platform, a short escalator ride up, are more spacious than those at the Empire State Building, and the perspectives on New York are decidedly different.
On a clear day - October is said to be the clearest month - you can see 35 miles west across New Jersey and east across the flatlands of Brooklyn toward Long Island.
Looking north, midtown (including the Empire State Building) unfolds like an elaborate architectural model, with the New Jersey Palisades to the left and the Bronx blurring into the Westchester County suburbs and Long Island Sound.
To the south are the Statue of Liberty, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and Staten Island, with Sandy Hook, N.J., and Coney Island in the distance.
Planes land and take off at Kennedy and LaGuardia Airports, boats cruise the Hudson and New York Bay, helicopters and small planes dart by and cars disappearing on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel emerge across the water in Brooklyn.
Although silk-screened diagrams and text on the 107th-floor windows describe what you see, nothing can match the feeling of being on the roof.
The blue platforms, surrounded by many barriers that make accidents a virtual impossibility, are eerily serene. While you can imagine the frantic bustle below, the city is all but mute.
The only sounds are the wind, which can often be intense, and a Babel of languages. (As at the Empire State Building, nearly 40 percent of the World Trade Center's visitors are foreign.)
Early evening is a particularly good time to visit. The sun sets over New Jersey (or is it really Pennsylvania?) and man-made lights gradually turn the city into a glowing panorama.
The chief down side to the Empire State Building and World Trade Center observatories is the crowds. Lines snake through the ground-level waiting areas, and, in the case of the Empire State Building, visitors have to change elevators at the 80th and 86th floors to get to the top, requiring more waiting.
On midweek visits last summer, the ground-level wait for each building was 40 minutes. With 2.5 million and 1.8 million annual visitors respectively, the wait to ascend can be as much as an hour on summer and holiday weekends. (The shortest waits are on weekday and Sunday mornings and at dinnertime.)
Insider's tip
A viewing deck where lines are almost unheard of is Belvedere Castle in Central Park. This 70-foot-high fantasy creation of Calvert Vaux stands atop Vista Rock, near the park's West 81st Street entrance.
The 118-year-old castle, recently restored, combines Norman, Gothic, Moorish and other styles, and is principally used for nature and arts programs.
Aside from savoring its odd, fairy-tale quality, visitors may also climb the 51 steps of its winding staircases to the third terrace, 160 feet above sea level, for views of the park and Manhattan's Upper East and West Sides.
Immediately surrounding the castle are Belvedere Lake (or Turtle Pond), the Great Lawn, the Delacorte Theater, the Shakespeare Garden and the dense patch of woods known as the Ramble. A bit farther are the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue and Central Park West and the towers of midtown.
Helicopter tours
For more adventurous souls with deeper pockets, the wildest - and most expensive - way of seeing New York from on high is by helicopter.
One sightseeing service, Island Helicopters, offers regular daily tours in which fearless fliers are whisked above the city at speeds of up to 100 miles an hour.
From the vantage point of about 500 to 1,500 feet above street level, a helicopter offers a decidedly out-of-the-ordinary perspective on the city.
The cityscape becomes a jumble of shapes and colors.
Tips of skyscrapers appear beneath your feet, and the layout of Manhattan streets and parks unfolds as if one were looking at a three-dimensional map. Architectural details, like gargoyles high on the Woolworth and Chrysler Buildings, suddenly become apparent, and normally hidden rooftop gardens and pools are revealed.
The views may be dazzling, but if you are not among the lucky seven to have a window seat in Island's 14-seat aircraft, the reason for the flight is largely defeated.
In addition, the East 34th Street heliport is a rather tawdry place to wait - which you can easily spend an hour doing, particularly since Island's competitor, Manhattan Helicopters, went out of business last summer.
But once the helicopter has made its ascent, the city seems both more complex and much smaller than you had thought.
Even the shortest tours, 10 to 20 minutes, manage to cover most of Manhattan, with some of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and New Jersey to boot.
But with an attentive eye, you can see everything from the Statue of Liberty to the George Washington Bridge in less time than it usually takes to drive a few blocks across Midtown.
by CNB