TKTS Booths

These are the new TKTS booths in Times Square where one can get same day tickets to various Broadway and Off-Broadway shows at a steep discount. The lines can be long but it may be worth the money because you can save as much as $50 off the regular priced ticket per person.

Notice the red colored glass roof above the ticket booths? Click here to see what the roof looks like from the other side of the building.

So have you ever climbed on top of a roof?

Battery Park Rooftops

This photo shows the various rooftop apartments in buildings at Battery Park near the Staten Island Ferry Terminal on the southern tip of Manhattan. Top floor apartments and penhouses maybe wonderful (no one stomping on the floor upstairs) but the electricity bills can be signicantly higher than (sometimes double) apartments on the middle floors. However, if one can afford penhouses like those, electricity bills are probably not a huge concern.

So how is your weekend going?

Midtown Manhattan Vista

This composite photo of Manhattan's skyline was "stitched" together by combining 6 separate photos using the "stitching technology" in my point-and-shoot camera. [Click on the photo to see the large format.] The photos were taken on the rooftop garden of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) on 5th Avenue and 86th Street on the Upper East Side.

The museum abutts Central Park on three sides so you can see the green mass of trees at the near bottom of the photo. The buildings in the background is the skyline of midtown Manhattan, along 60th Street where Central Park begins.

So when was the last time you visited a museum?

West Village Rooftop

Here is a photo of the West Village rooftop from yesterday. Technically, it belongs to the co-op residents so everyone in the building can use it for entertainment. My friend who lives in the building has her own area that is adjacent to this one.

The red building on the upper right corner is The Archives, which used to be the U.S. Custom Office but now has been converted into a luxury condominium. The most famous (or infamous) resident at The Archives (recently) was Monica Lewinsky, post Clinton scandal. She hid out in that building for a couple of years but I'm not sure if she still lives there.

So who is the most famous or infamous person you know?

West Village Vista

Here is another rooftop vista from my friend's apartment. This view faces the west side -- toward the Hudson River and New Jersey. The street in front of the sloped roof townhouses (lower left) is Greenwich Street, which is only two blocks away from the river.

My friend mentioned that she has seen people walking around naked in their apartments through those huge windows from her rooftop. This is typical for city life because almost everyone's window faces another apartment building.

Has that ever happened to you?

West 10th Street & Hudson

I had dinner with some former co-workers from my old job yesterday. We stopped over at a friend's rooftop apartment in the West Village for drinks before heading out to dinner and this was the view from the top.

This view faces northeast towards midtown. The street on the left is West 10th and the one on the top is Hudson Street. In the top left corner, you can see the Empire State Building, which is located on 34th Street and Lexington Avenue.

So have you ever had a rooftop party?

Chimneys 2

A couple months ago, I posted a photo of rooftop chimneys from the Upper East Side. Then this past weekend, I found more chimneys on apartment buildings in Greenwich Village so I guess I'm starting a new series -- the chimneys of New York City.

These chimneys in the photo was located on the rooftop gardens (with wooden fences) above the 5th floor of the apartment building. But then again, are those onion dome shaped metal structures with circulating parts really chimneys or air circulation apparatus? Does anyone know?

Laundry Day

I rarely see laundry air-dried outside the apartments any more because most people go to the laundromats or have washers and dryers at home nowadays. So you can imagine my excitement when I saw this image of laundry on the roof top as I stepped off the subway this past weekend. Not only were the shirts fluttering in the wind, they were also all white, which gave it a beautiful effect.

Do you prefer your laundry air-dried or dried in a machine?