Empire State Building

What it is

The Empire State Building stands at 20 West 34th Street in Midtown Manhattan, and what a visitor buys a ticket for is the observatory inside a working office tower, not the tower itself. It was designed by William F. Lamb, built during the Great Depression and finished in 1931, when it was the tallest building in the world; the limestone and granite facade and the Art Deco detailing throughout its halls date from that construction. The rest of the building is offices and is not open to ticket holders. The observatory occupies two levels. The 86th floor is the famous one, an open-air deck wrapped all the way round the tower with views in every direction, and it is the deck that appears in the films. The 102nd floor sits sixteen storeys above it behind floor-to-ceiling glass, indoor and temperature controlled, and on a clear day the operator says the view from there reaches about eighty miles and takes in parts of six states. Between the street and the decks the building runs a substantial museum on the 2nd and 80th floors that every ticket includes, so the trip up is not simply a lift ride. Tripadvisor voted it the number one attraction in New York City for the fourth consecutive year in its 2025 Travelers' Choice Awards.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

What's inside

A ticket admits the holder to the exhibits on the 2nd and 80th floors as well as the decks, and those galleries are where the time goes. The sequence starts with The Site in the 1920s, a black-and-white panorama of the original Waldorf-Astoria plot with viewfinders that bring the surrounding streets up in colour, and moves into Construction, staged around life-size bronzes of four ironworkers and three copper models showing the tower at different stages of its rise. Opening Day puts a newsboy on a 1930s street corner. Modern Marvel covers the deep energy retrofit. The Otis Elevators gallery holds a replica of the original mast car that carried guests from the 86th to the 102nd floor as recently as 2018, alongside a simulated shaft. World's Most Famous Building is a 72-screen, 180-degree surround-sound theatre running six hundred clips of the building in film, television, advertising and games. Kong lets visitors touch hands that have broken through the wall and feel them move. Upstairs on the 80th floor are the Celebrity wall, Stephen Wiltshire's 2017 drawing of Manhattan made from memory after a 45-minute helicopter flight, the Artistry in Light film on the tower lights, and viewfinders showing nine New York locations. The 80th Floor Viewing Gallery is included in every ticket.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

How long to spend

The operator puts the average visit at between one and two hours, and says the length depends on how much time a visitor wants to give the decks against the museum. Ninety minutes is the figure this guide records, and it is the middle of that published range rather than an estimate of its own. It is enough to walk the 2nd floor galleries at a normal reading pace, ride up, spend twenty to thirty minutes on the 86th floor deck making a full circuit and coming back to the side that turned out to be best, and stop at the 80th floor on the way down. A Top Deck ticket adds the 102nd floor and realistically adds half an hour, because the lift up is a second queue and the glass level is small enough that people linger. Anyone who wants to identify landmarks rather than photograph the skyline as a whole should plan on longer; the operator explicitly invites visitors to stay past the average for exactly that. Anyone with sixty minutes should skip the exhibits, go straight up, and accept that the museum is the part they gave away. The building sells a timed entry slot, so the clock starts at the reservation, not at arrival.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Season and crowds

The observatory is open 365 days a year, rain or shine, including every holiday, so the question is the hour rather than the date. The operator's own advice is to go between 12pm and 2pm, when the daily morning rush is over, and it repeats a second window for anyone wanting the deck quiet: after 8pm. Early morning is the third quiet stretch. That leaves the late afternoon and the hour around sunset as the busiest part of the day, which is also when the view is at its best, and there is no way round that trade beyond paying for an Express Pass. Weather matters more here than crowding does. The 102nd floor claims about eighty miles of visibility on a clear day and delivers nothing at all in low cloud, and the 86th floor is open to the air, so wind and rain reach the deck. Winter is a real option rather than a compromise: the 86th floor runs wraparound outdoor heaters and the 102nd floor is enclosed and temperature controlled. The building publishes the day's sunset time on its ticket page, which is the number to plan around if the light is the point of the trip.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Tickets

Prices start at $44 for an adult on the Main Deck ticket, which covers the 86th floor observation deck, the 80th floor viewing gallery and all the exhibits; the child price starts at $38 and the senior price at $42. The Top Deck ticket, which adds the 102nd floor, starts at $79 adult, $73 child and $77 senior. A booking charge of $5 is added to each transaction. Beyond those two there is a Best Value ticket from $39, a Flex Ticket from $64 that is not tied to a date, an AM/PM Experience from $62 that admits the holder twice on the same day for a daylight and a night visit, and Express Pass skip-the-line entry from $85 for the 86th floor or $120 for both decks. New York City residents get 25 per cent off. CityPASS bundles the 86th floor with four other attractions from $164, with a $2 booking charge per ticket. Guided options run from $175 for a small-group Premium Experience up to $500 for the All Access Tour. Tickets are valid for the date chosen at checkout and the standard ones can be rescheduled. Buying online is the operator's recommendation; the on-site ticket office is at 12 West 34th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Getting there

The entrance is at 20 West 34th Street, and the operator's advice on driving is unambiguous: leave the car at home. If that is not possible, the nearest garage is on 33rd Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway, across the street from the building. No visitor needs a car for this one. Three subway clusters put a traveller within a short walk. The 1, 2 and 3 and the A, C and E stop at 34th Street-Penn Station, five minutes away on foot. The N, Q, R and W and the B, D, F and M stop at 34th Street-Herald Square, also about five minutes. The 4, 5, 6 and 7 stop at Grand Central Terminal, which the operator puts at a ten-minute walk east. Herald Square is the one to aim for if the route allows, because it leaves a walker on the right side of Sixth Avenue with one crossing to make. The building is also a stop on the Big Bus Tours network. Whichever way a visitor arrives, the approach is on foot along 34th Street, and the operator's own line about not needing a map holds: the tower is visible from most of the surrounding blocks.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

What to watch out for

The single thing that catches people out is the reservation. The hours page states plainly that a specific time slot must be selected at checkout, so a ticket is not a licence to turn up whenever, and the entry door closes an hour before the posted closing time in the current season, at 11pm against a midnight close. The closing time itself moves through the year in short blocks rather than by season: the operator publishes six different periods between 14 May and 23 November 2026, with opening at either 9am or 10am and closing between 10pm and midnight, so check the hours page for the actual date rather than assuming a summer pattern. Nothing is published beyond 23 November 2026 at the time of writing. The second trap is weather, because the 86th floor is open air and the whole point of the 102nd floor evaporates in cloud. Accessibility is well covered: the 34th Street entrance is step-free, ramps run throughout, motorized and non-motorized wheelchairs are permitted, the 86th floor has accessible restrooms, lowered viewing walls and binoculars, and service dogs are allowed throughout. Strollers are welcome but must be folded in the observatory areas. The building does not publish a bag or camera-equipment policy on its visitor pages.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Photography

The two decks photograph completely differently and it is worth knowing which one a visitor is paying for. The 86th floor is open to the air, so there is no glass between camera and city and no reflection to fight; the trade is wind, and a phone held over the parapet in a gust is a phone that is gone. The 102nd floor is behind floor-to-ceiling windows, which means clean, still, warm shooting and a reflection problem that is solved by putting the lens flat against the glass and shading it with a hand. Downstairs, the operator names the Art Deco lobby, the grand staircase, the celebrity wall and the Kong exhibit as photo stops, and the bronze ironworkers in the Construction gallery are built to be stood beside. For the skyline, the low sun of the last hour before sunset lights the Midtown towers from the side and is worth the crowd; full darkness turns the same view into a field of light and needs a steady hand or something to brace against. The AM/PM ticket exists precisely so one visitor can shoot both. The operator publishes no policy on tripods or professional equipment on its visitor pages, so anyone bringing either should ask before travelling.

Checked 2026-08-26

Where it is

Nearby

External links

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