Empire State Building
Ride up to the 86th- or 102nd-floor deck and look straight down on Midtown Manhattan.
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The first building in the world over 100 stories, and the world's tallest until 1970. Art Deco by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, built in thirteen and a half months across 1930–31. The American Institute of Architects ranked it first on its Favorite Architecture list in 2007, and it's one of the American Society of Civil Engineers' Seven Wonders of the Modern World. Roughly four million visitors come each year.
What to look for
- The column-like massing: a five-story base, a sharply set-back shaft, and a capital up top
- Setbacks stepping inward at the 21st, 25th, 30th, 72nd, 81st, and 85th stories
- The 203-foot pinnacle covered in broadcast antennas and topped with a lightning rod
Enter the observatories at 20 West 34th Street; the 34th Street–Herald Square subway is one block west.
Empire State Building is one of 38 sights worth the detour in New York, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the New York pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in New York
- Statue of LibertyFrance's gift to the U.S.: a crowned, robed woman raising a torch over New York Harbor, long read as a welcome to immigrants arriving by sea.
- World Trade Center & 9/11 MemorialTwo reflecting pools now sit in the exact footprints where the Twin Towers stood until September 11, 2001.
- Wall StreetUnder 2,000 feet of pavement that stands in for all of American finance — named for a wall that hasn't existed since 1699.
- The Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art)1.5 million works under one roof, from Sumerian stone to modern American rooms — a day here barely scratches it.
- Central ParkThe most visited urban park in the US — an estimated 42 million visits a year — built by hand on the razed land of a Black settlement, Seneca Village.
- Brooklyn BridgeCross the East River on the bridge that was the world's longest suspension span when it opened in 1883 — on a promenade raised 18 feet above the traffic.