Scraping the Sky

When you get into Manhattan and get walking around you realise you get neck ache from walking round and looking up, you soon learn to view from afar.

The Empire State Building
One of the first touristy buildings we saw was the Empire State Building, it is massive and at night looks great too, it is lit up every night with red white and blue (native colours) but will change themes for occasions for instance on St Patricks day they light up the building green.



The Empire State Building surprisingly took only a year and 45 days to build which for the size and structure is impressive when you look at time spent on constructing buildings today.

The Chrysler Building
I have always been fascinated by this building, the lower of the building is not as interesting as the top section.


It was built in the famous art deco style and on different levels of the building has pieces reminiscent of the old automobiles for example on the 31st floor there is decoration involving replicas of the old Chrysler Radiator Caps. The building lies on 42ND street near Grand Central Station, it is an office building as opposed to being used for tourists.



The Rockefeller Centre


This building is high, i think it feels more so than others because it seems to be in narrower streets emphasising it towering over surrounding buildings. Currently there is a duel between the Empire State Building and the Rockefellar to who is the highest and competition for providing views of the city, the Empire State building has two floors - 86Th and 102ND and the Rockefeller has 'The top of the Rock'. The building itself is not as impressive as the Empire State Building, it is not seen as an icon, but the Rockefeller is helped by the outside with flags and a waterfall with a mini promenade area leading to the Rockefeller Centre.


Amidst all of this is St Patricks Church a little gem in the rough of the busy New York lifestyle. As you walk around with your neck craned up you come across these gaps and you have churches dotted all around Manhattan, but they are so ornate with being old you get a more decorative architecture whereas today with the more modern buildings it seems to be smooth clean lines. But on the churches you see the intricate detail shown on the facade which is carried on into the inside of the building, and even though these buildings do not carry the height of a 102 floors they boast a greatness in the structure and detail.