Empire State Building

So by fluke my Mom and I ended up at the top of the Empire State Building. Lindsay is terrified of heights and Lynda had been up there before so they weren't too keen on going up. Since there was absolutely no lineup (~35,000 people/day go up), Mom and I decided to give it a chance. It was AMAZING!

This is the first view that we got, looking directly West (towards Jersey). The black building is and office building (1 Penn Plaza) and just to the right of it you can see a bit of a round building which is Madison Square Garden. Go figure, round building with the word 'square' in it...
Looking Northwest...if you look way in the distance you can see the George Washington Bridge. We didn't ride over that one, instead we took the Lincoln Tunnel which goes under the Hudson River.
Looking straight North (towards Upper Manhattan)...You can see a bit of Central Park and how large it is. The building on the left with the large spire is 1 Bryant Park and was constructed only a year or so ago. It is supposed to be very 'green' and is the second tallest building in Manhattan (ironically there was a show on the Discovery channel the day after we got home about the construction of this building).

Again looking North, but down. Strangely enough, you don't feel like you are on the 86th Floor of a building when you are out on the observation deck. The only time I did was when I stuck my hands and my camera out the bars to take a picture. Thinking about things falling, from that height, made my hands sweat a little bit...The building with the golden looking roof if the American Standard (Radiator) Building and just to the right of it is the New York Public Library.
Looking Northeast (towards Queens)...The Chrysler Building and a little bit of the Queensboro Bridge in the back.
It was actually very warm on top. Granted we had to walk 6 flights of stairs to get us there and were warm after but I thought it would be windier than it was. I guess we just got lucky with such a brilliant day...
It really was so awesome seeing all those buildings, that from ground level look so large and suddenly are made to look so small...
Looking East...The one in the center is 3 Park Avenue, just another office building...

Looking Southeast (towards Brooklyn)... The gold roofed building in the foreground is the site of the Second Madison Square Garden, which is now New York Life Insurance Building. The skinnier building with the gold roof to the right is the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower. The bridge on the left side is the Williamsburg Bridge and somewhere behind that is the Brooklyn Bridge.
Looking Southwest (towards Downtown/Statue of Liberty)...The world trade center site is almost at the southern edge of downtown. The buildings on my map are just ghosts, but they towered over everything else, by about two fold. It would have been a site to see them...
Statue of Liberty and right in front of it is Ellis Island.
A view of the Fatiron Bilding from the Empire State Building. If you look closely (or zoom in on the picture) you can see that the white rectangular building in the foreground has a bunch of trees on the roof. As is typical NYC, space is at a premium and when you can't go sideways, you go up!
Some of the wildlife...I thought I would see more than these guys and one rat (in an emtpy field at night in Broolyn), but hey, there is always next time!