The Big Apple is back – and I’m on a high

As the US reopens, a new attraction offers tourists a dizzying view. Chris Leadbeater rises to the challenge

There, away to the south, remarkably clear on a warm autumn morning, is the Financial District – the singular sentinel of One World Trade Centre thrusting its antenna into the firmament. There, off to the west, is the Hudson River – New Jersey loitering on the far bank. There, nearby, to the east, is the Empire State Building. Which – I now notice, with a tremulous gulp – is holding its head at an elevation ever so slightly lower than my own.

And there, way below my feet, with no barrier to prevent me from encountering it in a few seconds of breathless terminal velocity, is the rest of Manhattan – the taxis on 10th Avenue a row of tiny yellow beetles; West 33rd Street a barely visible line cutting up to Penn Station; Central Park a blur of dizzying green when I find the nerve to lean out of the building to see it, to the north. Oh, good lord. What have I done?

The answer to that question is as obvious as it is – in that moment, amid the terror in my mind – silly. I have come to New York in the first week in 20 months that it is open to British tourists, taking advantage of the unlocking of America’s borders on November 8 to fly to its most feted city. I have queued at JFK airport, taken a taxi in through Queens, checked into the “new” Hudson Yards district on the west side of Manhattan – just south of Hell’s Kitchen, a hop north of Chelsea. And I have taken myself to the area’s latest attraction, City Climb – a nerve-shredding experience, launched on November 9, that lets you walk on a metallic ledge at the peak of New York’s sixth tallest skyscraper. For the record, and for context – as of last month, the Empire State Building is only the seventh.

The signs that this is going to be a situation of rare elevation are plentiful, and immediate. City Climb sits at the summit of 30 Hudson Yards – which assaults you with its size while you are still blocks away. Here is a 1,270ft behemoth, which began to rise above the railway tracks of west-side Manhattan in the winter of 2012, and achieved its full height in March 2019. In doing so, it has brought a fresh perspective to a city that is scarcely short of viewing platforms in the clouds. For those who do not wish to wobble on a rooftop while traffic helicopters flit and dart beneath them, there is the much more sensible option of the Edge – the structure’s visitor deck, at 1,100ft. Although even here, there are opportunities for vertigo. This is North America’s second highest outdoor observation space (eclipsed only by the CN Tower in Toronto); a panoramic playground defined by glass – the patches of transparent floor where you can snap social-media-ready images of your derring-do; the surrounding panels which fence everybody in, but don’t intrude on the sightlines down to Battery Park, or up to Harlem.

I, however, am going higher. And the process will not be easy. “City Climb is an intense aerial adventure course, which consists of platforms and staircases on top of one of New York’s tallest skyscrapers,” reads the board at the entrance to what I am sure is a fool’s errand. “This adventure course is both physically and mentally challenging,” the blurb adds. “If you suspect that your health could be at risk for any reason, do not participate.”

i City Climb takes place on NYC’s sixth tallest skyscraper, in Hudson Yards