The whole of Manhattan can be seen from the 100th floor of the skyscraper 30 Hudson Yards – the panorama extends to the state of New York and western New Jersey.
Since Wednesday, not only construction workers can enjoy the view. It is now open: according to the client, the highest publicly accessible outdoor viewing terrace in the western world. Your name: “Edge”, in German “Kante”. Until now, the tapering glass platform that protrudes from the building like a beak could only be admired from below.
–
The terrace “hangs in the air, so to speak, which gives you the feeling of floating in the sky, with a 360-degree view that you cannot have anywhere else,” the operators advertise. It can be experienced daily from 8 a.m. to midnight.
–
Even standing on the triangular glass surface in the middle of the terrace at a height of 335 meters will be a challenge for many. If you want more, you can lean against one of the 79 slightly angled glass panels and thus at an angle of 6.6 degrees to the outside. The curiosity about this adrenaline rush was huge even in New York, which is spoiled by views. Many of the tickets, which cost around 36 dollars (about 32 euros), were already sold before the opening.
–
The 395 meter high skyscraper 30 Hudson Yards is part of a large real estate project in western Manhattan. A completely new district is being built here with residential and office buildings, shopping centers, restaurants and a hotel.
The new terrace competes with other viewing platforms in the metropolis of New York, which almost every visitor with a head for heights would like to look down on. It’s been five years since the “One World Observatory” opened at the One World Trade Center. The new center stands where the attacks of September 11, 2001 caused the twin towers of the old World Trade Center to collapse.
–
The other two competitors for the panorama addict are “Top of the Rock”, the up to 260 meter high terraces on the Rockefeller Center, which opened in 2005. There is also the classic, the viewing platforms of the Empire State Building.
“Edge” platforms worldwide
Similar viewpoints already exist in places around the world. In Melbourne it is also called “Edge”: In the Eureka Tower, a walk-in glass cube moves out of the building. In Toronto, Canada, an “EdgeWalk” leads around the top of the CN Tower at a height of 356 meters. The observation deck of the Canton Tower in Guangzhou, China is 488 meters high, and the observation deck in the Lotte World Tower in Seoul extends from floors 117 to 123. Shanghai visitors can walk on a narrow ledge at the Jin Mao Tower.
–
Fans can argue for hours about which terrace is the best in New York. The platforms of the One World Trade Center and the Empire State Building are the highest at around 380 meters, the Rockefeller Center has a huge outdoor area. The entrance fees are similar – and ultimately the view too.
Because this is so, the operators of the attractions have to come up with more and more ideas in the competition for ticket sales. Gastronomy and souvenir shops alone are no longer enough.
“A great place under the open sky”
The “One World Observatory” was the first to turn the visit into a multimedia experience – for example with a video show in the elevators. The almost 90-year-old Empire State Building recently followed suit with a complete renovation of the exhibition rooms and platforms.
The famous Art Deco icon in the middle of Manhattan has so far also been ahead of the competition in the visitor competition: around four million people come to the viewing platforms of the Empire State Building every year, around half of whom marvel at the Rockefeller Center or the One World Trade Center.
Now “The Edge” in the new Hudson Yards district in west Manhattan also wants to get involved in this market. Around 60 million New York visitors a year are enough potential customers for a fourth viewing platform, say the operators.
In addition, the new terrace is very different from the others. “It’s 700 square feet of outdoor space,” says John Kelly of Related Companies, the design and construction company that designed and built the neighborhood. “You don’t walk around within the structure of a building where everything is restricted. It’s like a large open-air space.”
–
