Summer FridaysA guide to enjoying the best of the city every weekend. Good morning. It's Friday. Today, and on Fridays through the summer, we'll focus on things to do in New York over the weekend.
A Ride at the Top of Manhattan
"There's Queens, out beyond the East River." That is the last thing I remember thinking before the "aieeeee" moment. It happened 800 feet above Midtown Manhattan. I was sitting on a replica of the I-beam in the famous black-and-white photograph of construction workers on a lunch break, with Manhattan spread out dangerously far below. Those guys had it easy. Their I-beam did not spin 180 degrees the way mine did — and even though I knew it was going to, my stomach lurched. New observation decks have opened in New York City in the last few years, touching off what my colleague Mekado Murphy described as a dizzying competition for visitors' attention and dollars. These are high places with high prices. The Beam, as the ride I was on is known, costs $25, in addition to as much as $61 for admission to Top of the Rock, the multifloored space in 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Photographs taken as ticketholders pause in front of backdrops on the way in — or on the I-beam — add to the tab. At least a ride on the Beam is legal, unlike the escapades in the heart-stopping new film "Skywalkers: A Love Story." It's about Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, two roof-toppers who fall for each other as they try not to fall off places they do not have permission to go — namely, some of the world's tallest buildings. The cameras followed them to the 2,227-foot-tall Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is 1,377 feet taller than 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Still, the view from the Beam is something, even on a hazy summer afternoon when Manhattan is sweating under a pewter sky. To a New Yorker, the old, familiar places look different from up there. The wide, green carpet of Central Park stretches and widens out. The red letters that spell out "Essex House" above Central Park South are backward. And 550 Madison Avenue, with its Chippendale-style split pediment, looks much more formal than it does at street level. A generation ago, it qualified as a skyscraper. Now the Beam puts riders at eye level with the new, narrow and tall buildings along 57th Street. But the Beam shows only half of the skyline. The Beam is on the north side of Top of the Rock; everything visible from the south side, including the Empire State Building, is blocked by a wall.
The I-beam in the photograph from the 1930s shows 11 ironworkers with their scuffed shoes dangling above the rooftops of a much lower Manhattan. They didn't have a Rockefeller Center employee instructing them to place their feet on the lower lip of their beam. Nor was there someone to strap a seatbelt around everyone on the beam, as she did before my ride at Top of the Rock. Unlike the construction workers, who had sandwiches and even liquor on their lunch break, the new I-beam allows nothing more than props like a rubbery hammer offered by a Rockefeller Center employee. Someone in the group ahead of me was given what looked like a chocolate doughnut. It, too, looked like it was made of rubber. The Beam seats up to seven people, but if you are by yourself, the Rockefeller Center employees pull out the other seat backs while you are emptying your pockets into a cubbyhole you can keep your eyes on, at least until the I-beam swings around. The employees also keep their eyes on the cubbyholes. As I walked away, at just the moment I realized that I had not grabbed my keys when I retrieved my wallet and cellphone, one of them raced after me with the keys. The famous photo was both heroic and mundane, as the writer Jesse Newman observed in 2012. It was a triumph for a city struggling through the Depression. There have been various accounts about who was behind the camera: The photo was not credited when it was first published. For years it was attributed to Lewis Hine, then to a photographer named Charles Ebbets, who apparently took risks to get his pictures. He was a wing-walker in the early days of aviation, and was also said to be the photographer for the heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey. Anne Flanagan, a spokeswoman for Getty Images, which keeps the original glass plate at its Bettmann preservation facility, said that Getty could not confirm the photographer's identity, although she said it could have been Ebbets. She also said it might have been snapped for a public-relations campaign for Rockefeller Center. As the Beam descended, I thought about Nikolau and Beerkus, the couple in "Skywalkers," and how tame a Beam ride would be for them. They have moved to New York from Thailand. "But no climbs yet," a Netflix spokesman told me when I was safely back at my desk. WEEKEND WEATHER The clouds will part this weekend, which is expected to be sunny with temperatures in the mid- to upper 80s. The evenings will be mostly clear, with temperatures in the low 70s. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Aug. 13 (Tisha B'Av). What Else to Do This Weekend
Outdoor activities
More local events
For more events in New York, here's a list of what to do this month. We hope you've enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. Live out your Hogwarts fantasies
"Harry Potter: The Exhibition" covers 30,000 square feet and is filled with props, sets and costumes worn by the actors from the films based on J.K. Rowling's books. You can admire the workmanship of the handmade buttons on some of the costumes or crawl into Harry's cupboard under the stairs. There are items from not only the Warner Bros. Harry Potter films, but also the "Fantastic Beasts" movies and the Broadway play "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child." The exhibition, at 50 West 34th Street, across from Macy's, will close on Aug. 11. For children, the real draw is pretending to be a Hogwarts student. Visitors choose one of the school's houses and earn points for it by completing activities at interactive stations. The fun includes brewing a potion on a computer screen, forecasting the future with a crystal globe, casting a Patronus charm, throwing a Quidditch ball and repotting fake mandrakes, which, as those plants do in the Wizarding World, respond by screaming. METROPOLITAN DIARY New friends
Dear Diary: I had spent the evening with a new friend watching a movie at the Angelika Film Center. Afterward, enjoying the novelty and warm energy of a budding friendship, we decided to extend the moment by going to a wine bar around the corner from my apartment. The place was fairly empty, with just two other women sitting a few tables over and a waitress behind the bar. We sat down at a corner table, talking quickly and openly, exchanging stories and photos on our phones. The waitress, who just wanted us to put our order in, was clearly exasperated. In the seeming privacy of the virtually empty wine bar, my new friend began a story by saying she was in therapy. Happy to keep the confidences equal between us, and to keep our conversation open, I replied immediately that I was in therapy too. Before we could go on, one of the women sitting a few tables over piped up. "I am in therapy, too," she said. Her friend announced that she was as well. The white-noise machine of New York City buzz had been pierced. — Jennifer Markowitz Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you Monday. — J.B. P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
|
N.Y. Today: A ride at the top of Manhattan
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment