Empire State is probably THE most iconic building of New York City – when you think of New York City, the first thing that comes to mind is probably the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. It really symbolises New York City and its lifestyle and is one of the most visited landmarks in the city – it receives around 4 million visitors each year and not only can the building be admired from outside against the New City skyline, but you can also appreciate it from inside in one of the two observatories open to the public all year round.
Location
The Empire State building is located between 34th and 33rd street on 5th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. The main entrance to the building is from 5th Avenue and can be found very easily. It is located between Madison Avenue and Broadway, not too far from Macys or Madison Square Garden.
About the Empire State building
The Empire State building is a grand and eye-catching piece of architecture – there are characteristics to be found similar to that of the Chrysler building and this is mostly because it was built in the 1930s, the same period of time as the Chrysler and even the Rockefeller building. It was completed and ready in 1931, and has been standing 102 storeys tall, for 80 years. The art-deco style, that you see with the Empire State and other similar structures comes from an artistic technique popular of the time and one of the characteristics of an art-deco building is when externally the overall structural design is symmetrical, straight edged with step-back arrangement as the tower goes higher and can be particularly concrete looking; internally the building design can be seen to have lots of decorated work, with colourful and vivid colours, and simple but abstract patterns and geometric shapes, all very bold, and actually quite fascinating. All of this may look a little old today however this design still represents the iconic design and character of the art-deco period style of this 1930’s era of New York City. As you enter the Empire State on the ground floor you instantly notice the art-deco design-work, where essentially the look is very gold in colour, but includes lots of artistic pictures and designs especially along the hallway to the lifts which are very bright and vibrant.
How to get there
Getting to the Empire State building is very easy and depends on where you are heading out from – if you are already in the Midtown area of Manhattan then you may be able to walk it as it could only be a matter of a few blocks away. We always make sure we book our hotel in the Time Square area so we walked it to the Empire State building – if you are located in Time Square you will be conveniently located to most of the popular places. The other way to get to Empire State, if it is not walking, is by Subway – the nearest Subway station to the building is Herald Square on 34th Street – all the lines on the subway are coded and so you can use either of these: B,D,F,N,Q,R,V, W. Penn Station is also not far from the building – you will find Penn Station on 34th Street and only need to walk 2 blocks to reach 5th avenue.
The other option of course is yellow cab – they will take you anywhere and depending on where you are starting from, you will be charged according to the running meter. In my view though, as long as you are centrally located, you should be able to walk around most of the midtown location and that is probably the best way to get around New York – you could never get bored of walking around New York City.
Opening hours
The Empire State building is open every day of the week from 8am to 2.00am – the last elevators go up at 1.15am so you get to be at the top for an aerial view right the way through the night. The two of the busiest days to visit the Empire State is Saturday and Sunday, so it’s obviously a good idea to try and visit during midweek if possible and not during holiday season; but generally the Empire State will be busy most of the time anyway. It depends on whether you want to see the views at night or during the day – the first time we came to the Empire State, we went up to the observation deck at night; this time however we got to the Empire State building first thing in the morning around 9.00am – we made a point of trying to get there early because it is the most quietest and least crowded very early in the day – and this was true. So if you are planning on avoiding the crowds as much as possible to better the experience, try getting there first thing in the morning.
Tickets and prices
There are a range of tickets you could purchase to enter the Empire State Building. These can either be bought online, from the site at the base of the building or from your hotel if you are just making your decision to visit the building at the last minute. Which ticket you go for really just depends on your own interests and how much you want to spend on your experience at the Empire State.
Despite the large choice of tickets, if you know what you are wanting then the decision will probably come very easily. You can choose from the below - the more pricier ones are mostly just fast-tracks:
* 86th Floor Observatory pass: This will give you access to the Observation deck on the 86th floor – you will be an incredible 1,050 feet high at this point. You can either buy these tickets on the day or online – if bought online you will just need to show your tickets and then you can queue up to get onto the elevator which takes you up. It includes an indoor and outdoor section – but it is outside where you get the best views of the city. These tickets will cost you around $22.00 which is around £15.00.This was the ticket we chose.
* Express Pass: All this ticket allows you to do is fast-track security, the ticket purchase queue (which you wouldn’t have had to queue up for if you bought it online) and the elevator queue. This express pass will cost you roughly double the standard price – approximately $43.00 (£27.00). If you have plenty of time and money is not an issue then this may be worth it, otherwise its best just sticking to the $22.00 ticket. And if money is not an issue then I would probably choose the next ticket combination which allows you access to the 102nd floor!
* 86th & 102nd Floor combination Pass: This entrance ticket will obviously give you access to the standard 86th floor observation deck but the extra is an observation deck 16 floor higher than that, which is the highest point you are able to reach on the Empire State (1,224 feet high) and will cost you $39.00 which is around £24.00. We didn’t take this pass and I haven't previously been up to the 102nd floor but I’m guessing the views will be as spectacular as the 86th floor – the 86th floor does offer some breathtaking scenes in itself.
*Others: There are many more other combinations and ways to purchase these tickets and choices of what you want to include with your entrance – you just need to either check online, ask at reception of your hotel or just take a look through a few of the leaflets available in the hotel. You will find so many options that you may not know what to go for as the additions seem so appealing – there is also the 86th & 102nd floor express combination (which is basically the fast track of the $39.00 ticket but at a higher price) or the “New York City Pass” which also offer tickets for the Rockefeller, Statue of Liberty and other sights around the city as well as Empire State.
You could also include the
NY Skyride to your ticket – this may really take the interest of children especially with the word “ride” thrown into it. It is on the second floor and involves a virtual “flight” tour simulator of New York City (most observation building or towers seem to have these). It is narrated by Hollywood actor Kevin Bacon and allows the viewer who is on this “ride” to travel through all the biggest sights of the city in a fast-paced thrilling sort of way. It’s really just a way to get tourists further sucked into this Empire State experience – I’m not saying the observatory experience were bad, they are just expensive and I don’t want to throw any more money into it. Essentially it makes you try to believe that you could have an even more pleasurable day out if you choose this ride. These tickets can be found online and is offered at $41 - £25.50 for 10 minutes!. The very first time we visited Empire State we unfortunately bought ourselves some tickets for this Skyride, (yep, we were sucked in...) but we will not be buying tickets for this again as much it was a good experience, we could have done without spending our money on that. Either way though, interesting skyride.
What to see and do
* Approaching the Empire State building: Even if you are walking around the vicinity of the Empire State Building, I think that at times it is difficult to follow and find the Empire State just by heading towards it– its mostly because majority of the times the building is hidden away by other tall buildings as you head closer and also because generally if you have tried looking up in the busy New York City street, you could literally just cause chaos by bumping into people. So best to follow a map, and to be completely honest, finding your way around the city is very easy - all you need to know is that the street numbers go up as you go north - so 1st Street begins at East Village, right at the top of downtown Manhattan and Harlem can be found at around 125th street in the Uptown area – the avenue numbers go higher as you go from east to west.
It is very straightforward and really a painless way of getting around – I would love all cities to be just like NY - even as a tourist I never get lost! Once you do find your way to 5th Avenue and you enter the building you will be greeted by the art-deco style like I mentioned earlier – it is all very beautiful; you will see what I mean when you enter the building. You will also have to go through security as well though where your bags will be checked – which is usually the norm now for big status buildings like this one anyway.
* On the observation deck: To reach the observation deck located on the 86th floor, you will join a queue to get into an elevator which is pretty big and fits in lots of people. The queue is also quite lengthy and you could have to wait around a little bit longer than you would like to. Anyway, once the queuing to board to elevator was done with, we were whizzed up 86 floors and 1050 feet high up to the observation deck of the building and immediately you will be met with crowds and crowds of people up on the observation area. The deck does span the entire circumference of the building so in theory there should be space for everyone (though really there is not...) and also you can have the experience of walking all the way around the building, looking out from all angles and therefore seeing New York city high up from all different viewpoints and long-ranges. You will also be able to take lots of pictures, because there is not a fence that blocks so much of the view – there is a criss-cross fence going on but you can easily and freely get your camera past that, just don’t drop it. There are also lots of info boards put up which help you match what you see in the skyline and what building it actually is from the map or plan they have for you there. Also if you stopped by on the 80th floor you will find the gift shop called The Empire Store. This is a nice place to buy Empire State Building Souvenir and gifts all at expensive prices. If you are wanting to buy New York City merchandise it may be best to leave it until you are back on ground and buy it from one of the other gift shops located around New York City.
* Viewing at night time: I would really recommend experiencing the view when the sun sets, the city starts getting dark and all the lights come on – this is a completely different sight altogether. If you are not too worried about avoiding the queues by arriving very early in the morning, then get to the Empire State entrance just before evening or when it’s about to get dark and you can stay until the dark – but just queue up with enough time before it does get dark otherwise you will miss sunset! The first time we went up the Empire State we really wanted to see New York City at night time and this might have been an even more incredible experience than the daytime....but then I can’t really make up my mind which one I liked the most - both are just so mind-blowing and both so different – try doing both! If you like the idea of doing both times of the day in one trip and time is not a restraint then I would say get up to the observation deck before the evening so you get the day time experience which will then turn to sunset and nightfall!
'* Building floodlights: The Empire State Building is lit up every night since 1964 making it a bit of a night time attraction as well. Each of the colours that are displayed all have some significance and the colours chosen tend to correspond to the holiday or event, for example, green lights during St Patricks Day or Red, white and blue on September 11th. On a normal night though, the building is lit up with white lights. One time when we were there during April 2010, we could see the Empire State beautifully lit up red, yellow and blue, apparently this was for the White House Project and during Christmas I have seen it lit up in its traditional Christmas colours of red and green which looks completely stunning and sooo...Christmassy! That was the only two times I’ve seen it a colour other than its normal light and if you are in New York during a particular event and an occasion look out for its colours – it’s really exciting!
Downsides of the Empire State?
A downside of visiting the Empire State building is probably the price of the ticket just to get to an observation deck to look out at city - though on the other hand once you do reach the top you instantly will receive some breathtaking panoramic views, which are likely to never be able to get if you hadn’t accessed the Empire State and I suppose everything comes at a price. It can make you wonder though why you need to pay so much just to do some sightseeing – basically just looking around. But it’s really to do with the fact that to reach a level as soaring as that at 1050 feet or even 1224 feet, unless you work at a highly paid job in one of those New York city towering offices you may never get this experience – you can’t set out to do this on your own, and buildings such as the Empire State or the Top of the Rock (Rockefeller building or GE Building) can in turn offer this experience and as it turns out there is actually money to be made.
Ironically, what also is another of the biggest downsides of visiting the Empire State is the crowds of people and therefore the amount of queuing that need to be done. Every single person is paying to be up there and they all want to experience what the next person wants to experience but why do so many people want to look out of the Empire State building, when you don’t even get to see the historic landmark within your aerial view that you actually came out to see – the Empire State! Even if I am exaggerating the idea that this is the biggest downside, we did buy ourselves ticket to get up to the 86th floor so I contributed to the overcrowding and to be honest when we were on the deck we began to forget about all the people around and focus more on things such as, how far is it humanly possible to see out, and what’s the best spot to take a picture with all of us in it, and what angle did we not take a picture from...?? Additionally when you think about it, there is not much the people who own and run the building (W&H Properties) can do about the fact that tourists keep it up with the queuing just to fulfil this experience – at the end of the day it is all to do with supply, demand and success - and it really helps boosts New York City tourism too.
Overall, even if the entrance fee and the crowds of people come across as the biggest downside, it is all just part of the experience and if these are too major to deal with you then no one will be buying tickets for the Empire State and the place may be pretty vacant most of the times, which it clearly isn't. SO what I would do is, just take my time when I’m up there because you actually have as much time as you want - your ticket is not limited to a certain number of hours; also take your camera as you will need to get back the cost of your ticket! – Memories are just too important.
My experience
Even though the above seems like a negative account of things (to some extent), we really did have a brilliantly enjoyable experience, I would be lying if I say that it was not one of the most incredible times I had in New York. Even though the tickets are not the most reasonable, the views we received from the Empire State were just so awesome and extremely fantastic. Most of what you see when you are up on the observation decks are lots of other concrete buildings, lots of yellow cabs looking strangely like little toy cars, you can also look out for particular landmarks and will see the Flatiron building and the brilliant way the road splits just at the front of that building, you will see the Madison Square Garden arena, Macys, River Hudson and even the Statue of Liberty. You are basically on top of the world at that point – on top of New York City and if you try to pin-point and focus on one particular thing you can realise the incredible height you are at. You also get to see buildings that you can never get to see at a certain eye level like the Chrysler building, the Rockefeller building, or even that ugly black Met Life building!
One thing I have to point out though is if you have a choice of visiting either the Empire State building or Top of the Rock, I would say to go for the Top of the Rock only because from this view you will also be able to see the Empire State Building. I know it sounds silly to say, but you only realise how important it is to have the Empire State building in your panoramic views of the City when you have actually seen the views from Top of the Rock – from this observation deck, you also do not have any obstructions from a fence as it is all glass (a bit like the 102nd floor observatory deck of the Empire State). We only got tickets for the Top of the Rock after we did the Empire State building on two different trips, and although I would recommend to do the Empire State at least once, if you have the time and the money to spare on yet some more observational view tickets, I would really suggest checking out the Top of the Rock – the views are so much better.
Overall
On the whole, a breathtaking experience, and one that I will remember for a long time. Photos which we took when we were up on the observation deck now seem SO much more valuable once we got back home! So really don’t stop clicking on that camera and take as many photos as you can!
I saw it all! 
