Less an observation deck than an art installation you happen to be a thousand feet up inside. Mirrored floors, a glass lift over the street, and a lot of people photographing their own shoes.
What it actually is
One Vanderbilt opened in 2020 next to Grand Central, and rather than build another glass box with binoculars, the developers commissioned the artist Kenzo Digital to make something else out of the top four floors. The result is a sequence of rooms called Air, in which the floor, the ceiling and most of the walls are mirrored, so the city repeats infinitely below your feet and above your head.
Whether that is brilliant or a very expensive selfie backdrop depends entirely on your temperament. It is undeniably unlike anything else in the city, and it is undeniably designed to be photographed. On a busy evening the floor is covered in people taking pictures of the reflection of their own faces, and the view out of the windows — which is genuinely excellent, looking straight down 42nd Street with the Chrysler Building beside you — is somewhat secondary to the room itself.
The parts
Transcendence is the first mirrored level, the big one, with the view east and south.
Reflect is a smaller room filled with silver balloons that drift when you move through them. Children love it.
Affinity is a Yayoi Kusama installation of mirrored spheres.
Levitation is a pair of glass boxes cantilevered out from the side of the building at 1,063 feet, with a glass floor. You stand in one and look straight down at Madison Avenue. It costs extra and it is short and it is the closest thing in New York to the Willis Tower ledge in Chicago.
Ascent is a glass lift on the outside of the building that rises from the deck to 1,210 feet on the exterior face, with glass on three sides and the floor. It also costs extra. It takes about a minute and a half and it is genuinely startling.
Après is the bar on the terrace level, outdoors, and it is the only open-air part of the experience.
Whether to bother
If you have already done Top of the Rock or the Empire State Building and want something different, yes. If this is the only tall thing you are doing on the trip and you want a clean look at New York from above, no — go to Top of the Rock, which is cheaper and gives you a better and less mediated view.
It is also the most expensive of the four Midtown decks once the add-ons are counted, and the add-ons are where the money is.
Practical
Timed entry, book online. Shoe covers are provided at the mirrored floors and you will be asked to put them on. Bags go through screening at street level.
There is no time limit inside, and people stay a long time, which is why the evening slots feel crowded even when the ticketing is controlled.
The entrance is at street level on 42nd Street, effectively next door to Grand Central, which makes it the easiest deck in the city to reach.
More Skyscrapers & Views
Empire State Building
Built in 410 days during the Depression and empty for years afterwards. The 86th-floor deck is open air, which is what the newer decks in Midtown are not.
Chrysler Building
The best Art Deco tower in the world, and you cannot go up it. The lobby is open, the crown is not, and it is still worth the detour.
Top of the Rock
The deck to pick if you are only doing one, for the simple reason that the Empire State Building is in the photograph rather than under your feet.