New York From The Edge

As New York City started slowly to reopen around February to April of this year (2021), I thought what places of interest were reopening and how available were these places and experiences. New York is a city well known for its skyscrapers, including the World Trade Center buildings and the famous Empire State Building.

Edge was pushing a decent aggressive marketing campaign. I was seeing Edge advertisements almost everyday on the subway, I saw them on top of cabs and the more I saw these ads I finally had to look up Edge. Looking up EdgeNYC led me down a path of revisiting other NYC public skyscrapers. I visited One World Center, Empire State Building and Top of The Rock before, but it got me to thinking what the experience would be at these popular tourist spots. It turns out that the Empire State Building was already reopened since July last year (2020).

On my first attempt to visit Edge, I was unable to go up to the deck as it was a very cloudy and overcast morning. This is peak Spring weather in New York because from Chelsea I can see the Edge deck and by the time I was at work the sun came out and all the cloud cover was gone.

My second attempt to visit the Edge was successful. Getting the Edge is a bit of a trip in itself. For me it was almost as if I was going to Javits Center, just almost. To reach the Edge you have to go through a mall at the new development at Hudson Yards. Hudson Yards opened to the public back in 2019 and became a virtual ghost town because of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, to the point where reports say it is now struggling not to be a bust as it was built to attract high end tenants for retail, offices and condos. Walking through the mall which is one of two options to get up to the Edge (the other an elevator) was pretty eerily for a New York space. Granted we were still in pandemic mode in March of this year, but all the shops that were still in the mall were still opened for business.

To get through the Edge's security is pretty swift unless you have a backpack like I did. They were thorough but nice enough not to make it feel like TSA at the airport. However, once you make it through and make your way up the elevator it is absolutely worth it.

The thing that makes Edge stand out really and not as a joke is the location and on the actual deck it is totally unrestricted. For at least $36 you will experience views from a midtown vantage point that you won't remember there is glass as the guard rail until you really get close to the edge. With this being my first visit to Edge I can say for certain that Edge provides endless opportunities for for photography enthusiasts. While I love the beauty of nature in photos, there is just something also beautiful about the architecture and landscape of the buildings in New York.

Out of the public decks in New York to visit I rank Edge #1 out of the 4 observation high rises.