UPPER EAST SIDE, MANHATTAN
Roosevelt Island Tramway
A commuter cable car at skyline height, for the price of a subway ride.
Scenic View · $
08Through the Lens
The light worth waiting for
New York photographs differently at 6 a.m. than at 6 p.m., and differently again in the rain. This guide collects the city's best shooting positions — and soon, the photographs we make there ourselves.
Viewpoints & photo locations
UPPER WEST SIDE, MANHATTAN
Belvedere Castle
A Victorian folly built for one job: the best mid-park view there is.
Scenic View · Free
TRIBECA, MANHATTAN
Staple Street Skybridge
A private sky-bridge over a one-lane street — downtown's favorite wrong turn.
Photography Location · Free
MIDTOWN, MANHATTAN
Top of the Rock
The deck where the Empire State Building and Central Park both line up correctly.
Scenic View · $$$
MIDTOWN, MANHATTAN
Tudor City Overpass
The Manhattanhenge railing — 42nd Street in one straight shot, Chrysler at your shoulder.
Photography Location · Free
BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN
Brooklyn Heights Promenade
Manhattan at exactly the right distance, from a terrace floating over the BQE.
Scenic View · Free
DUMBO, BROOKLYN
Washington Street
The bridge-framed block that made DUMBO's name — and it looks exactly as advertised.
Photography Location · Free
ASTORIA, QUEENS
Astoria Park
Lawns under two giant bridges, where the harbor's tides collide at Hell Gate.
Scenic View · Free
Sunrise & sunset
GREENWICH VILLAGE, MANHATTAN
Washington Square Park
The Village's marble-arched front room, where Fifth Avenue ends and the show begins.
Park & Garden · Free
CHELSEA, MANHATTAN
Little Island
A park on concrete tulips, rolling like hills over the Hudson.
Park & Garden · Free
UPPER EAST SIDE, MANHATTAN
Roosevelt Island Tramway
A commuter cable car at skyline height, for the price of a subway ride.
Scenic View · $
MIDTOWN, MANHATTAN
Top of the Rock
The deck where the Empire State Building and Central Park both line up correctly.
Scenic View · $$$
MIDTOWN, MANHATTAN
Bryant Park
A formal French garden on the roof of the library's stacks, furnished with ten thousand movable chairs.
Park & Garden · Free
MIDTOWN, MANHATTAN
Tudor City Overpass
The Manhattanhenge railing — 42nd Street in one straight shot, Chrysler at your shoulder.
Photography Location · Free
Architecture
CHELSEA, MANHATTAN
Chelsea Market
The Oreo's birthplace, hollowed into a brick tunnel of food stalls.
Historic Place · Free
SOHO, MANHATTAN
Greene Street cast-iron blocks
The world's best run of cast-iron facades, still impersonating marble after 150 years.
Architectural Gem · Free
TRIBECA, MANHATTAN
Harrison Street Rowhouses
Eighteenth-century townhouses parked beneath 1970s towers — survival as architecture.
Historic Place · Free
MIDTOWN, MANHATTAN
Grand Central Terminal, Main Concourse
A backwards zodiac, an opal clock, and the landmark fight that saved the city's face.
Architectural Gem · Free
DUMBO, BROOKLYN
Brooklyn Bridge walkway
The Roeblings' boardwalk in the sky — still the city's best mile on foot.
Architectural Gem · Free
Photography walks
Dumbo · Brooklyn Heights
Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn Heights
Walk the bridge out of Manhattan, land in DUMBO's cobblestones, and finish above the harbor on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.
~4.0 km (2.5 mi) · about 3.5 hrs · 7 stops
SoHo
SoHo Cast Iron and Hidden Streets
A short loop through the world's largest collection of cast-iron architecture — pastry first, Greene Street's columns, Crosby's cobbles, and a bistro finish.
~1.9 km (1.2 mi) · about 2.5 hrs · 5 stops
Long Island City
A Sunset Walk at Gantry Plaza
Queens' front-row seat: tacos on Vernon Boulevard, then the old gantries, the piers, and a slow waterfront drift south as midtown lights up across the river.
~2.1 km (1.3 mi) · about 2.5 hrs · 4 stops
The portfolio
Our own photographs of these places are coming.
Every illustration on this site marks a frame we intend to fill with an original photograph — camera, lens, and exposure notes included. Until then, we’d rather show you honest artwork than someone else’s unlicensed pictures.
Read the photography stories →