Prohibited Panoramas

In an age of heightened security and the mass condoization of our greatest buildings, an illicit explorer soaks up the views from the city’s off-limits observation decks.

Photos by Moses Gates

I first moved to New York in the summer of 2001. On a whim one day, while visiting a friend who worked in the basement of the World Trade Center, I took a trip up to the observation deck. It was a beautiful summer day, and admission was only $10, but there was still no line. I had no idea that, in good weather, tourists were also allowed on the roof. After taking the short set of stairs from the observation deck to the roof, I thought it was the best $10 I ever spent.

That September, along with a lot else, we lost that view. But sometimes forgotten is that we also lost two other views: the view from the Crown of the Statue of Liberty, and the view from the top of the Riverside Church Carillon, both of which closed in the aftermath of the destruction of the World Trade Center.

Everyone in New York eventually internalizes that the city we know is temporary, the places we love always at the mercy of destruction in some way, shape, or form. But my particular lesson came…