NYC: Cityscapes

18 June 2011

N: Hudson River (left), Bank of America Tower (left, white with mast), Rockefeller Center (stepped building, centre), Central Park (centre distance)

I have been a big fan of Sim City for many years, going right back as far as when we had the Atari when we were kids. Sadly I can’t play it any more as Aspyr haven’t bothered to develop an update for Intel Macs. So all I can do is make a little city, get so far and then the damn things quits on me. Boo, I say. Boo. All that to say: I love cityscapes. I love images of settlements from the air, where you can study all the different buildings and look for the fun details that you might miss at first glance. This photo of Salzburg from the air has been my desktop background on my 21.5″ screen for a year and a half now and I still love it.

NW: Central Park (centre right); the lights to the left of the Met Life building are coming from Times Square

NW: Central Park and Rockefeller Center (top left), traffic on Fifth Avenue (centre left), Queensboro Bridge (right), Citi Corp Building (top centre, sloped roof)

So you can imagine the fun I’ve had with the images I took from the top of the Empire State Building. What is probably Manhattan’s most famous landmark was the last stop on our first day. We skipped the ticket line with our pre-bought tickets and sailed through the building, past happy employees pointing us onward and other happy employees trying to get us to buy stuff until finally we hit the queue I’d expected to hit downstairs. We weren’t waiting around too long for the elevator in the scheme of things (wait until you hear about our Statue of Liberty visit) and we whizzed up to the 86th Floor Observatory to see the sights.

W: Penn Plaza (centre), Madison Square Garden (circular building, centre left); 34th Street to the left of Macy’s, 35th to the right, our hotel is too close to the Empire State Building to be seen

SW: The perfect little Sim City-esque scene; McDonalds at West 28th and 6th Ave

If the idea of looking out in the open air gives you the heebie jeebies you can get pretty good views from indoors, but waiting to take an empty space at the railings as everyone takes their turn is definitely worth it. We had audio guides to listen to that explained what we were looking at and told us some of the history of the city. Again, I’m not sure I could tell you any of these facts even if my life depended on it.

S: Looking swindswept

S: Brooklyn Bridge (centre), Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (far right)

S: Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower (gold top, left), Flatiron Building (centre; Broadway to the left, Fifth Avenue to the right),

S: Us, with the Financial District behind us

S: Financial District (centre), Statue of Liberty (distance, right) Ellis Island (closer, right), World Trade Center Site (centre right)

S: Manhattan Bridge over the East River, connecting Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn; Brooklyn Bridge (centre right)

SE: New York Life Building (centre),

We spent nearly an hour up on the Observation Deck taking in the sights. The sun began to sink while we were up there, bathing the buildings on Manhattan Island and across the other side of the East River in golden light. Eventually we headed back to the elevator and sped down to street level again and walked home.

ESE: Williamsburg Bridge (right), Brooklyn across the river

ENE: Chrysler Building (centre left, ) Seagram Building (black tower), Queensboro Bridge, Roosevelt Island, UN Secretariat (centre right), Pepsi Cola sign (far right)

Posted in: friends, new york, photos, travels

Comments

2 Responses to “NYC: Cityscapes”

bonnie
18th June 2011 @ 5:25 pm

Oooh I’ve always loved SimCity, too. We had it for the Macintosh Performa when I was in high school and then my mom bought the expansion pack that allowed you to make your city look like it was from ancient China or (not ancient) Mars. But these days (assuming I had computers up to the task and assuming I had time to obsess over it) I prefer the Sims because it’s like playing with dolls.

[Reply]
NYC: Midtown : dreamdust
6th July 2011 @ 4:12 pm

[...] is a patchwork of building styles, with all kinds of different architecture to be found. As the views from the top of the Empire State Building showed, the city was a mishmash of different colours, with no set template for the skyscrapers [...]