Rather than a conventional view deck, its top floors house "Air," a permanent mirrored art installation by Kenzo Digital spanning over 30,000 square feet of reflective glass, opened in 2021.
The mirrored installation is partly an art experience rather than a pure viewing platform, so book ahead and expect the space to feel most crowded in late afternoon.
SUMMIT is the deck that is not quite a deck. It occupies levels 91 through 93 of One Vanderbilt, the Kohn Pedersen Fox tower completed in 2020 immediately west of Grand Central Terminal, and it opened in October 2021 with a plan that puts an artwork ahead of the altitude. The two lower levels hold Air, an installation by Kenzo Digital in which the floor, the walls and a ceiling forty feet overhead are all mirrored, so the city arrives folded and repeated rather than framed. Some visitors rate it the best hour they spend above New York; others want a plain window and are irritated for the whole visit. Work out which you are before you book.
The geography is genuinely distinct from the other Midtown decks. At 1,020 feet on 42nd Street, this is the closest a visitor gets to the Chrysler Building, whose crown tops out at about 1,046 feet and therefore stands at eye level a few blocks east rather than far below. North, Park Avenue runs away over the MetLife Building toward the West 57th Street towers with Central Park behind them. South, the Empire State Building sits eight blocks off and beneath you, which is a much closer and steeper picture of it than Top of the Rock gives.
Two elements sit outside the mirrored rooms. Levitation is a pair of glass boxes projecting from the facade with glass floors, so you stand clear of the building's line with the avenue directly under your shoes. Ascent is a pair of glass elevators that climb the exterior of the tower to roughly 1,210 feet, the highest point a visitor reaches at any of the five, though you reach it inside a cab for a few minutes rather than on an open deck, and it is booked separately from the main entry.
45 E 42nd St, New York, NY 10017 · Official site ↗
One Vanderbilt is a 62-story supertall skyscraper at the corner of 42nd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox for developer SL Green Realty, the skyscraper opened in 2020. Its roof is 1,301 feet (397 m) high and its spire is 1,401 feet (427 m) above ground, making it the city's fourth-tallest building after One World Trade Center, Central Park Tower, and 111 West 57th Street.
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