Lonely planet new york city pdf

Mobile Navigation. Sign In Your Account. Chapter Details. Previous Chapter Next Chapter. Information-rich to ensure you get the most from your time away Organised by neighbourhood with detailed listings on everything from top sights and activities to shopping, nightlife and accommodation Includes an A-Z Survival Guide and extensive pre-planning sections Full colour, pull-out detailed city map plus colour maps throughout Compare Guide Types.

Around the World. Lonely Planet's Beautiful World mini. Heading up to the top is as quintessentially New York as pastrami, rye and pickles. Book this experience today It's been scaled by King Kong, drawn lovers together in films like Sleepless in Seattle, and survived a plane crash. It was lit up in tribute to front-line workers as the COVID pandemic ravaged the boroughs, just ninety years after construction began and it became an instant icon of a rapidly growing city.

It's recognizable to Manhattanites and visitors from all over the world, and to many it's synonymous with the Big Apple itself. The history of the Empire State Building The statistics are astounding: 10 million bricks, 60, tons of steel, windows and , sq ft of marble. According to legend, the skyscraper's conception began with a meeting between William Lamb and building co-financier John Jakob Raskob, during which Raskob propped up a No 2 pencil and asked, 'Bill, how high can you make it so that it won't fall down?

Prefabricated I-beams, columns, and other components manufactured in Pittsburgh were also crucial to ensuring quality and speed of construction. Steelworkers assembled the parts on site, sometimes high up in the sky — a site captured in iconic photos of riveters on the high iron.

Their affinity for heights earned them the nickname "skywalkers," and is a tradition that continues today. The Art Deco limestone tower officially opened for business on May 1, , just after the Great Depression had halted the white-hot race to build ever-taller sky scrapers including Empire State's early rival, the Chrysler Building , with the Empire State Building reigning supreme.

The Empire State Building stands ft from top to bottom. Though it's no longer the tallest building in New York's skyline by a long shot, the views remain sublime. Unless you're Ann Darrow the unfortunate woman caught in King Kong's grip , heading to the top of the Empire State Building should leave you beaming.

Book this experience today There are two observation decks. The open-air 86th-floor deck offers an alfresco experience, with telescopes previously coin operated; now free for close-up glimpses of the metropolis in action. Further up, at the top of the spire, the enclosed nd floor is New York's second-highest observation deck, trumped only by the observation deck at One World Trade Center.

Needless to say, the views through the floor-to-ceiling windows over the city's five boroughs and four neighboring states, weather permitting are quite simply exquisite. On a clear day you can see as much as 80 miles in the distance. Plan your visit As one of NYC 's most popular sights, it can see long queues, though a new entrance redesign has eased some of the bottlenecks. Your first stop is the Story of an Icon museum on the 2nd floor, which was completely redesigned in with multimedia exhibits on the building's history and its place in the United States' cultural imagination.

The path through the displays leads you to the observatory elevators. Book this experience today As one would expect, the views from both decks are especially spectacular at sunset. For a little of that 'Arthur's Theme' magic, head to the 86th floor between 10pm and 1am Thursday to Saturday, when the twinkling sea of lights is accompanied by a soundtrack of live saxophone requests are welcome.

For a full rundown of color schemes and the schedule, check the website. Getting there The Empire State Building can be accessed by public transit using a number of lines. Did you know?

A locked, unmarked door on the nd-floor observation deck leads to one of New York's most outrageous pie-in-the-sky projects to date: a narrow terrace intended to dock zeppelins.

Spearheading the dream was former New York governor Alfred E Smith, who went from failed presidential candidate in to head honcho of the Empire State Building project. When architect William Van Alen revealed the secret spire of his competing Chrysler Building, Smith went one better, declaring that the top of the Empire State Building would sport an even taller mooring mast for transatlantic airships.

Book this experience today While the plan looked good on paper, there were two major oversights: dirigibles require anchoring at both ends not just at the nose, as planned and passengers who travel in the zeppelin's gondola cannot exit the craft through the giant helium-filled balloon.

Regardless, it didn't stop them from trying. In September , the New York Evening Journal threw sanity to the wind, managing to moor a zeppelin and deliver a pile of newspapers fresh out of Lower Manhattan. The famous antenna was originally meant to be a mooring mast for zeppelins, but the Hindenburg disaster slammed the brakes on that plan. Though the ambitious plan for docking airships never got off the ground, years later an aircraft met up with the building with tragic consequences: a B bomber crashed into the 79th floor on a foggy day in , killing 14 people.

Spanning three levels at the top of the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, One World Observatory offers dazzling panoramic views over Manhattan's crystal garden of skyscrapers. On a clear day you'll be able to see all five boroughs and parts of surrounding states, as well as the Brooklyn Bridge and Statue of Liberty — both looking as small as children's toys from this lofty perch atop the One World Trade Center.

Book this experience today The awesome vista of New York is only revealed after the screens showing an introductory video abruptly disappear, revealing the view through immense picture windows. Admiring the city from above is a great way to get a feel for how everything fits together and plan the rest of your New York sightseeing.

The location has a powerful resonance. The footprints of the original World Trade Center towers — preserved today as the National September 11 Memorial Museum — are visible in the shadow of the current One World Trade Center, which stands feet m taller than the original towers. Highlights of the view Once the intro video ends and the screens slide back, everyone rushes for the windows to gaze out over an astonishing bird's-eye view of New York.

The first thing to look for is the Brooklyn Bridge — the first fixed crossing over the East River, still standing proud after years — lined up alongside the newer Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges. Looking southwest, you'll spot the Statue of Liberty floating on her green island off the Jersey shore; there's a reason the statue looks tiny from this height — at a modest 93m tall, it's almost half a kilometer shorter than One World Trade Center. Book this experience today Facing north, the Empire State Building is instantly recognizable amongst the cluster of first generation skyscrapers in the center of Manhattan.

Peer closely and you may also spot the Chrysler Building and the Flatiron Building amidst the taller towers. Note the piers lined up along the Hudson River, where transatlantic steamships docked during New York's golden age. To make the skyscraper-spotting easier, the tower's iPad-based guide — the One World Explorer — allows you to zoom in on the view to highlight individual buildings. The original plans were drafted in by Daniel Libeskind, the architect behind the Jewish Museum in Berlin, but the structure was redesigned by David M Childs, the brains behind Singapore 's Changi airport terminal.

Construction started in and the tower topped out on 10 May As well as being the tallest building in America, this tapered tower is currently the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, and the sixth tallest building in the world by pinnacle height. The height isn't accidental — the antenna takes the building to feet m , a tribute to the year the American Declaration of Independence was signed. It was the first major building constructed using the Building Information Model, a digital platform created to manage all the phases of planning, design and construction in a single virtual space.

The experience Reaching the observation deck, Starting on the ground floor, you'll pass a giant electronic world map highlighting the homelands of visitors to the tower with data obtained from ticket scans and the multiscreen installation, Voices, which tells the story of the people behind the One World Trade Center. But the real show begins when you board the Sky Pod elevators, whose LED wall panels provide a virtual journey through the evolution of the Manhattan skyline over the past five centuries.

These hi-tech elevators zip visitors to the top in just 47 seconds at a speed of Book this experience today Out of interest, the first tourist to climb the tower was New Jersey free climber, Justin Casquejo, who wriggled through a hole in the security fence while the tower was under construction and reached the top of the antenna aged just He was promptly arrested and sentenced to 23 days community service; he also had to write a word essay explaining what he had learned from the experience.

Once you reach the observation levels, the first step is the introductory video show before the views are unveiled, but you can also look down on the vista directly from above at the Portal — a circular glass porthole which shows real-time footage of the street below.

As you might expect, there are various places to eat and plenty of stands selling souvenirs. In summer and during some holiday periods, hours are extended as late as 10pm with last ticket sales at pm , but it's best to check the website in advance if you want tickets at a specific time of day.

If you don't have a ticket ahead of time, come as soon as they open to avoid a queue. Various train and subway lines meet at World Trade Center station but it's worth exiting the subway a stop early at Park Place station so you can approach the tower on foot at street level and get a full sense of its scale.

There are meal options on site, all charging a premium; you're better off going over the road to the Le District and Hudson Eats food courts in the Brookfield Place complex. Hotels near One World Observatory If you want to stay in Lower Manhattan, you'll pay a premium, but there are some good choices in the neighborhood. For generations, migrants to America cruised past the statue on their way into New York harbour, and knew they had arrived in the land of freedom and opportunity.

Book this experience today Visiting the Statue of Liberty is not just a case of turning up on the day. The ft 93m statue stands on its own Access is by ferry from Battery Park, and most visitors visit on a loop that also takes in Ellis Island, where more than 12 million immigrants checked into the USA from to Both sights rank amongst the most popular things to do in New York so it pays to purchase tickets online in advance to avoid soul-crushingly long queues.

Experiencing the Statue of Liberty On arrival at Liberty Island, your options will depend on the ticket you hold in your hand. Tickets to climb the star-shaped pedestal are only slightly more expensive, but they are in heavy demand, and often book out months ahead. The interior of Lady Liberty is surprisingly crammed, with room for just a few visitors at a time in the crown itself, and this puts a strict limit on visitor numbers hence the crunch for tickets.

The statue's pedestal — build in the style of a bastion fort — also offers good harbour views, though not quite as impressive as from the crown. Liberty Island has various food options, all pretty dire, so bring a picnic lunch to eat on the lawn by the statue or on the sea wall in front of the harbour view. History The Statue of Liberty was really a French invention from the outset.

After gaining approval from the New York authorities, the pair travelled to America to select a site in Book this experience today Bringing the plan to fruition was a long, drawn-out process.

Costs were covered by private donors from France who paid for the statue and America covering the costs of the plinth but funds ran short on several occasions. Publisher Joseph Pulitzer launched a fundraising drive that eventually carried the project over the line, with small donations from some , contributors.

Known in full as Liberty Enlightening the World, the ft 93m figure is a representation of the Greek deity Libertas, and the design was strongly influenced by the neoclassical sculpture of Ancient Greece and Rome. Bartholdi was obsessed with the Colossus of Rhodes, and he had already had one giant, torch-wielding statue project rejected by the Khedive of Egypt.

The statue was pieced together in kit form in Paris, using moulded copper plates just 2. The completed statue was shipped over to New York in pieces, and assembled on Liberty Island then Bedloe's Island , opening to the public in The gilded torch you see today, however is not original; it was added in to replace the fragile original lantern, which was relocated to the lobby.

The ferry ticket to Liberty Island includes access to the grounds and guided ranger tours or self-guided audio tours. Book ferry tickets ahead to avoid long queues on the day. The slog up tight, narrow steps to the statue's crown is arduous and should not be undertaken by anyone with significant health conditions that might impair their ability to complete the climb.

You'll need a good four or five hours to explore both Ellis Island and Liberty Island properly. A New York icon, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, more commonly known as the Guggenheim, is an internationally-renowned art museum and one of the most significant architectural icons of the 20th century.

But temporary exhibitions climbing the much-photographed central Rotunda are the real draw. The Guggenheim is a cultural center, an educational institution and the heart of an international network of museums. Visitors can experience special exhibitions of modern and contemporary art, lectures by artists and critics, performances and film screenings, classes for teens and adults, and daily tours of the galleries led by museum educators.

History of the Guggenheim The museum was established in and was originally called the Museum of Non-Objective Painting. It was founded by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by by the aforenamed New York mining magnate. He started collecting abstract art in later life with the help of his long-time art advisor, artist and museum director, Hilla von Rebay, and he bequeathed the initial collection.

In , Frank Lloyd Wright was commissioned to design a building to house the museum, which adopted its current name in after the death of its founder. The inverted ziggurat structure was derided by some critics but hailed by others, who welcomed it as a beloved architectural icon.

The museum closed for three years in for renovations, including the addition of an eight-story tower. The Guggenheim reopened in with the entire original Wright building now devoted to exhibition space and the tower containing square meters of new and renovated gallery spaces.

It has since opened other notable branches in Bilbao and Venice, and its Abu Dhabi museum is currently under development. Though Wright intended visitors to go to the top and wind their way down, the striking single semi-circular elevator can make this difficult on busy days. Exhibitions, therefore, are installed from bottom to top.

Pick up the free audioguide or download the Guggenheim app for information about the exhibits and architecture. You can also enhance your experience of the building with a Family Activity Guide on architecture. Chapter Details. Previous Chapter Next Chapter. Information-rich to ensure you get the most from your time away Organised by neighbourhood with detailed listings on everything from top sights and activities to shopping, nightlife and accommodation Includes an A-Z Survival Guide and extensive pre-planning sections Full colour, pull-out detailed city map plus colour maps throughout Compare Guide Types.

Around the World. Lonely Planet's Beautiful World mini. Lonely Planet's Best in Travel Lonely Planet's Natural World. Travel by Colour.