Top of the Rock

The observation decks on the 67th through 70th floors of 30 Rockefeller Plaza win New York's view contest on a technicality: they're the deck you can't see 30 Rock from, which means the skyline arranges itself correctly. The Empire State Building stands alone to the south where it belongs, and Central Park unrolls to the north as a full green rectangle — the single best angle on the park's geometry available to the public.

The building itself, finished in 1933, designed the decks to evoke an ocean liner's terraces, and the top level is open to the sky with no glass at all — rare among the city's observatories, and the reason photographers favor it. Time your ticket for about an hour before sunset: you get the daylight city, the burn, and the lights coming on, all on one visit.