New York City - The Edge

A few weeks back, Caroline and I celebrated our 12th anniversary by taking a little trip to New York City. It was a great trip - New York is an amazing place that is filled to the brim with things to see (and photograph). So it was well worth waking up at 3:30 in the morning so we could catch the first flight out of the airport.

Say what you will about the Little Rock airport, but one great thing is that you can occasionally catch it when it's not busy at all. That morning there was not a single person waiting in the TSA security line. I don't think I've ever been able to just walk through security like that before (thank you Clinton National!). Our flight took off at sunrise and then a few hours later deposited us at LaGuardia airport. And then after sitting through some traffic, we finally made it to our hotel. We dropped our bags off and were free to start exploring the city. Our hotel wasn't too far from the new Hudson Yards development, so we headed off that way first. Along the way we passed by this place which has taken so much of my money in the past:



And then we went to the observation deck called Edge, which sits on the 100th floor of the 30 Hudson Yards Building (I'm assuming they named it after the guitar player in U2). The Edge is billed as the highest skydeck in the Western Hemisphere, and has a 80 foot cantilevered outdoor terrace that stretches out 1,100 feet above the streets below. The views are pretty good from up there.



The overlook offers views of Lower Manhattan, the Hudson River, the Empire State Building, and Midtown Manhattan.





You also get a good view of two of the city's newest skyscrapers from here - One Vanderbilt (the 4th tallest building in NY) and 270 Park Avenue (the 6th tallest). They both seem to tower over the Chrysler Building.



And the view of the One World Trade Center tower, the tallest building in NYC. We'd get a much closer look at it later in the trip.



There seems to be a strong competition between all of the Observation Decks now for customers, and each offers various other attractions to see beside the views. At some you can do skywalks, or recreate famous photographs (like at Top of the Rock), or have influencer-friendly spaces (like at One Vanderbilt). Here at the Edge, there is this random hallway filled with plastic bananas. I can see how this would appeal (or a-peel) to certain tourists.