Top of the Rock Now Offers One of the City’s Elite Views

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The New York Sun

In the original “King Kong” (and in the remake that opens tonight),when the hairy hero went looking for a peaceful aerie, he – like countless tourists before him – headed straight for the Empire State Building.


At 1,454 feet to its antenna, The Empire State is the city’s tallest building. Its 86th floor draws more than 3.5 million visitors a year, but starting six weeks ago, it has faced competition from the Top of the Rock, the multilevel summit of Rockefeller Center that has garnered rave reviews for its similarly sweeping vistas and a host of modern bells and whistles.


At 70 stories, the Top of the Rock is shorter,but sleeker; it features unobtrusive glass panels encasing its open-air viewing areas and a timed ticket system designed to keep waiting to a minimum. But which is the better experience?


The question, posed on a windy, cloudy weekday afternoon, proved easy for some but stumped others. For one married couple from Long Island, it sparked a friendly squabble.


“I like the Empire State Building,” Rich Rosenman, 45, said as he stood with his wife, Margo, on the 69th floor viewing area on the Top of the Rock. “The Empire State Building is higher.”


Margo Rosenman, 55, disagreed, saying she preferred the glass panels and spacious viewing area at Top of the Rock. “I feel closed in when I’m at the top,”she said of the Empire State Build ing. “I thought it was dirty.”


“It’s older,” her husband replied.


“Yeah, well clean it up,” Ms. Rosenman countered.


Both peaks offer views for miles around the city, from Newark to Queens and the George Washington Bridge to the Statue of Liberty, faded but visible to the south. By virtue of its height, the Empire State Building, at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street,leaves visitors towering above the city, looking down on everything from tiny yellow cabs to the – relatively – lowly Chrysler Building.


The Top of the Rock, visitors say, offers a different point of view.


“You feel closer to everything,” Annmarie Cullinan Schroder, 35, of Williamsburg, said. “This one you feel like you’re among the buildings.”


With its entrance on 50th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues, the Top of the Rock provides far-reaching views of Central Park, which is partially obstructed from the zenith downtown. Rockefeller Center’s most exclusive view, however, is of the Empire State Building itself.The structure dominates the southern view – a centerpiece to the Lower Manhattan skyline.


Top of the Rock is a reincarnation of the Rockefeller Center observation deck that was open for more than half a century between 1933 and 1986. It closed to the public to make room for an expansion of the Rainbow Room. Since buying 30 Rockefeller Plaza in the late 1990s,Tishman Speyer Proper ties has been planning the re-launch of the observatory, which reportedly cost $75 million.


The company expects to draw 2.5 million visitors in the observatory’s first year, and sales since it opened November 1 have been better than expected, though officials declined to provide specific numbers. Visitors have spoken highly of the new attraction’s intricate design features and modern touches.


Top of the Rock has its own entrance in the Rockefeller Center mall, complete with a spiral staircase and a 35-foot crystal chandelier. At just over $15 including tax, adult tickets are a dollar more than at the Empire State Building. They list a specific time informing patrons when they will board the elevator to the top.After passing through metal detectors, visitors can peruse a small museum exhibit and watch a large, plasma-screen video while they wait.


Images of the building’s history are projected on the ceilings of the elevators, which, traveling 67 floors in 44 seconds, evoke a trip back through time. The 67th floor offers indoor views, and escalators take visitors to a large outdoor area on the 69th floor. A smaller outdoor section caps the observatory on the 70th floor.


The Empire State Building, meanwhile, is undergoing its own renovation to spruce up its waiting areas and observatory, a spokeswoman, Lydia Ruth, said. Like the Top of the Rock, the revamped waiting area will feature exhibits and plasma screen videos about the building and its history. The gift shop will also be moved from the 86th floor to the 80th floor, to create more open space at the top.The renovations are expected to be completed within two years, Ms. Ruth said.


At Rockefeller Center, when visitors reach the summit, comparisons to the Empire State Building are inevitable, employees say. “That’s the first thing out of everyone’s mouth,” Phoebe Stewart, 20, one of several aides trolling the observation decks to answer questions and take group photos, said.


For their part, the Top of the Rock workers take a playful pride in the budding competition with their downtown counterpart. A visitor emerging at the top from a crowded elevator asked, “How fast does the Empire State Building go?”A greeter responded with a lighthearted scoff: “Ah, don’t even compare us to that.”


Ms. Stewart tried to put the difference in perspective. “The Empire State Building is very much like a cattle call,” she said, referring to the long, winding lines that often await visitors to the building. She said the approach to Top of the Rock, on the other hand, “is very much trying to make it classy. No giant exit signs. No Formica floors.”


Officials at the Empire State Building show no sign of concern, banking on the building’s 74-year reputation as a world famous landmark. Ms. Ruth said the opening of Top of the Rock had “absolutely” no effect on sales, which she said are up 10% from 2004.


“We welcome another observatory, and it’s a great place to see the Empire State Building,” Ms. Ruth said, noting that the 86th floor observatory and the previous Rockefeller summit had “peacefully coexisted” for decades.


The New York Sun

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