New York City’s comeback after the pandemic is great. Literally: climbing, lounging, dining or staying overnight is all possible on the highest floors of skyscrapers. And the islands around Manhattan also sparkle, with a new luxury spa and spectacular park.
–
It is not yet noon and I already have an alcohol test to take. No, I’m not behind the wheel, but I am in a skyscraper in the ‘sleek and shiny’ Hudson Yards, a neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan that is barely recognizable compared to ten years ago. ‘Last week we had to turn down two more men. Insufficiently sober after a night out’, says an employee. With my special suit and helmet, I look like an astronaut being taken to the launch pad. When the helmet is clicked into place, doubt sets in. Wouldn’t I just ‘just’ stick to the Edge? From New York’s newest observation deck, a glass floor that juts out across the street on the 99th floor of a skyscraper, the cars on 10th Avenue look like Matchbox miniatures. I pull myself together and begin the ascent of the 161 steps of a 45° inclined staircase in the open air. This climbing tour is called ‘City Climb’. It’s the most difficult part of the experience: getting the harness on the rail is not always easy.
–
Almost at the top, my companion asks to wait for a moment, so that he can film my adventure with the GoPro camera on his helmet. A little show, it’s part of it. The last stop before the moment arrives for which I came: an employee shows me how to do the ‘lean outs’. I put my feet on the edge of the platform and lean forward in succession – facing the deep end – and back. As an impressive view unfolds, I can hear the visitors cheering on the Edge platform many meters below me. You can see almost all of Manhattan. With stunning views of the Empire State Building, Lower Manhattan and Central Park. What makes it even better is that there is no glass or walls, just an unobstructed view of New York City.
–
–
© Ben Michel / Unsplash
–
–
Hollywoodtrailer
The Edge is yet another proof that the iconic Empire State Building no longer has the ‘observation realm’ to itself in New York. There was already ‘Top of the Rock’ at Rockefeller Center, and during the pandemic two newcomers have been added in one fell swoop: in addition to Edge with his ‘City Climb’, there is also ‘Summit One Vanderbilt’, right next to Grand Central Station.
–
Summit One Vanderbilt clearly goes for the bombastic approach, with a film in the lobby that looks like a Hollywood trailer and when you come up something that looks like a hall of mirrors.
–
I don’t realize at first that I’m already standing among the clouds – the milky-white-looking ‘walls’ are nothing but thick fog behind the glass facade on the 93rd floor. So it wasn’t a lie when they warned at the entrance for low visibility on this rainy day.
–
Every now and then the clouds open just enough to catch a glimpse of the outside world, like the lights on the crown of the neighboring Chrysler Building just popping up as I stare. A beautiful moment, but otherwise Summit One is too much over the top for me, including the souvenirs and photo shoots that are almost impossible to escape.
–
–
–
–
By the way, the competitor, Edge, has another novelty in store: an entire neighbourhood. Edge is located in Hudson Yards, a fairly new cluster of skyscrapers and spectacular buildings – or works of art? – which is built atop a marshalling yard along the Hudson River. In addition to a shopping center with luxury boutiques and offices – including from the infamous private equity giant KKR, which has bought a stake in the observation deck – Hudson Yards is home to the arts center The Shed and Vessel, an imposing beehive-like structure with numerous staircases. Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to climb the shiny structure, after several people jumped to their deaths.
–
graffiti chief
Not only brand new skyscrapers compete for the favor of visitors. In the Wall Street neighborhood, a nostalgic Art Deco tower on Pine Street has recently opened its top floors for a fine dining experience.
–
When you step out of the elevator at Saga on the 62nd floor, you immediately come face to face with two bartenders behind a counter in draped concrete. Their cocktails are served on the outdoor patio, where the sun is just beginning to set behind the green gabled roof of a skyscraper beyond. The view from the terrace on the other side—which I discover between aisles—is even more impressive: the majestic bridges toward Brooklyn and, once dark, a string of red car taillights on Lexington Avenue. This is the kind of restaurant where diners often slip out for a photo opportunity.
–
–
©AFP
–
–
However, there is just as much fun to be had at the table. Chef James Kent, who has experience at some of New York’s top restaurants and likes to say he did some graffiti on the same building as a teenager, insists on preparing a great ‘sharing menu’ for every table. Perhaps unusual for a gourmet restaurant, it fits in with his philosophy to share beautiful and refined dishes without hesitation.
–
Incidentally, there is also a graffiti artist on the walls of the restaurant. ‘When the owners heard that I had still sprayed graffiti here, they suggested installing a work by Jean-Michel Basquiat’, Kent laughs. Egon Schiele is also present, as is other top work. The owners, who also run a bar one floor up, are apparently great art lovers.
–
Queen of Mean
For a drink with the ultimate ‘power view’, look a little higher up Manhattan, on the southern edge of Central Park. The Park Lane New York hotel has just completed a major renovation. Including the Darling bar on the 46th floor, where the tyrannical “Queen of Mean” Leona Helmsley—a hotel mogul who thought paying taxes was something for “little people”—had her illegal swimming pool. ‘The only rooftop lounge on Billionaires’ Row’, Park Lane boasts in a reference to the street beyond where a few towering, narrow ‘skinny scrapers’ guarantee priceless views of Central Park for their wealthy residents.
–
But you don’t have to buy an apartment for that view. A visit to Darling or an overnight stay in Park Lane offers the same experience: a panorama that never gets old. The trees below are spread like broccoli florets as far as Harlem. And the sunbathers and picnickers enjoying a sun-filled afternoon on the grassy plain of Sheep Meadow are little more than multicolored dots.
–
Park Lane is by no means the only New York hotel that has come out of the pandemic break thoroughly refreshed. In the hip Soho district, the stylish ModernHaus nods strongly to the art world, including work by Alexander Calder in the rooms and a modernist design inspired by the Bauhaus school. Plus the inevitable rooftop lounge, with a swimming pool.
–
–
© Michael Kleinberg
–
–
Diane von Furstenberg
All those height experiences almost make you forget that New York City is more than just Manhattan. Time has also not stood still on the islands around it during the pandemic. What’s more, an island has even been added: Little Island, built from an undulating mass of concrete pillars that resemble flowers or the tees on which you place a golf ball.
–
The project is an initiative of the couple Barry Diller-Diane von Furstenberg, respectively the businessman behind the booking site Expedia and the Belgian fashion designer who is best known for her wrap dress. The same wealthy duo also powered the impressive High Line, a park on an abandoned train viaduct that winds through Chelsea to Hudson Yards.
–
Perched in the Hudson River next to the Meatpacking District, where the High Line begins, the immaculately kept Little Island is home to a small amphitheater and playground where adults can also happily sit in a colorful spinning top and spin into the surrounding skyline. to take up. I see the inevitable Edge pass, just like the relocated Whitney Museum and the Freedom Tower on the southern tip of Manhattan. The soundtrack is provided by numerous helicopters flying overhead.
–
–
©Shutterstock
–
–
‘Sauna and the City’
For my next destination I need the ferry. It takes me to Governors Island, an island a stone’s throw from Wall Street that until recently had little to offer. That has changed with the luxury spa QC NY, part of the Italian QC Group. A carefully restored former barracks now houses a steam bath and saunas in various themes. In ‘Sauna and the City’ you are surrounded by the Manhattan nighttime skyline, carved in wood with indirect lighting behind it. But you might as well look out the window at the real skyline as a bright orange ferry glides by.
–
On a higher floor, Upside Down offers a distinct relaxation experience: a room where the ceiling is the floor, with a chessboard hanging upside down and a grandfather clock running down. Lying on a mattress, you take a look at the world from the ceiling, while calm music and the ‘Aria Dolomiti’ scent – juniper and amber – fill the room. But what really makes QC NY unique is the outdoor pool with a frontal view of Wall Street’s skyscraper forest. So our gaze goes up again.
–
–
©Adrian Gaut
–
–
This also applies to the last trip, towards the Statue of Liberty. That has been given a completely new museum on its own Liberty Island. The museum tells the impressive story behind the statue, a gift from the French that sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was able to make concrete with much toil and puzzles.
–
The tour ends at the original torch, which was replaced in 1984 and can now be seen up close against the backdrop of the statue that has welcomed visitors to New York City for nearly 140 years. All this time, the city has always managed to reinvent itself, even after setbacks. It is clear: New York is ready again.
–
–
