A triangular deck sticking eighty feet out of the side of a Hudson Yards tower, with a glass floor and an angled glass wall you can lean against over a thousand feet of nothing.
The overhang
The Edge is a triangle of deck that projects about eighty feet out of the 100th floor of 30 Hudson Yards, held on nothing you can see from where you are standing. There is a panel of glass floor near the point, and the perimeter walls slope outward at six degrees so you can lean your whole body against them with a thousand feet of air below.
The engineering that makes that possible is genuinely impressive — fifteen sections were built off-site and lifted into place, and the deck is designed to move a few inches in high wind, which on a gusty day you can feel.
What the view gives you
Facing east, you get the classic Midtown skyline from an unusual angle: the Empire State Building and the Midtown cluster laid out side-on rather than head-on. Facing south, Lower Manhattan and the harbour. Facing west, the Hudson and New Jersey, which is the least interesting direction and also where the sun sets, so it is where everyone stands at seven in the evening.
Because Hudson Yards sits at the west edge of the island, you are looking across Manhattan rather than out from the middle of it. That is a real difference from the Midtown decks and it flatters photographs.
City Climb
The separate and much more expensive add-on is City Climb, in which you are harnessed, given a suit, and taken up an external staircase on the outside of the building to a platform at 1,271 feet, where you are invited to lean out over the edge on the harness. It is the highest external building climb anywhere and it is not a gimmick — it is a genuine, controlled, quite frightening thing to do. Book separately, expect a long briefing, and do not do it if heights are a problem.
Whether it beats the others
It has the best single gimmick — the glass floor and the lean-out walls together are more fun than anything at the other decks. It has a worse location: Hudson Yards is a new development on the far west side and there is not much around it except the shopping centre it sits on top of, the High Line, and the Vessel.
The honest ranking for a first-time visitor doing one deck is still Top of the Rock. For a second deck, this or Summit, depending on whether you would rather stand on glass or in a mirror.
Practical
Timed tickets, booked online. The entrance is inside the Shops at Hudson Yards on the fourth floor, which is not obvious from the street — follow the signs, not your instincts.
There is a champagne bar on the deck. There is also a small indoor level below the outdoor deck for when the weather turns, and the outdoor deck does close in high wind or lightning, occasionally at short notice.
The 7 train terminus at 34th Street–Hudson Yards is directly below and is the newest and cleanest station in the system, which is a low bar but a real one.
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.