High on New York!
1 Vandy’s clearly ‘Grand’ new view
COMING soon to a skyscraper near you — a brandnew observation deck with maybe the best height-andlocation combination in town. Summit One Vanderbilt, which calls itself “the most immersive observatory” experience,” will open its doors on Oct. 21 atop One Vanderbilt, the 1,401-foot-tall tower at Vanderbilt Avenue and East 42nd Street, next to Grand Central Terminal.
The three-level, 65,000 squarefoot eyeballs-exciter takes up the 91st through 93rd floors of the tower. Mirrors, reflective panels and floor cutouts create a funhouse effect that plays with your sense of location and height.
A transparent glass elevator called Ascent whisks visitors even higher, to the loftiest viewing point in Midtown at 1,200 feet above the street.
Scarier still, “sky boxes” on the 92nd floor project outward from the tower’s facade to allow kneesknocking views straight down to Madison Avenue through floors of glass. Marc Holliday, the CEO of One Vanderbilt developer SL Green, assured us they can support weights of up to 12,000 pounds.
A lounge run by Danny Meyer’s Union Square Events will offer “elevated” snacks and bar service on the 93rd floor, both indoors and on an open-air terrace that’s wrapped around the building’s south and west sides.
Summit guests will also experience Air, a multisensory installation designed by Kenzo Digital that combines transparency, reflectivity and media effects to create “the illusion of boundless space.”
Under a clear sky, we saw everything from a taxi opening its doors 1,100 feet below to Jones Beach 40 miles distant — plus the Chrysler Building and thousands of other structures, great and small, reduced to toys.
The Summit vista also took in Manhattan’s other top-floor observatories — a growing crop that includes One World Trade Center, the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center’s Top of the Rock and the most recently opened, The Edge at Hudson Yards.
But Summit’s Grand Central location can’t be beat. It excites your imagination about New York City and makes you fall in love with the place all over again.