Summit One Vanderbilt Tickets and Tours

SUMMIT is not a conventional observation deck. You ascend 93 floors beside Grand Central into a multi-sensory art environment where floor-to-ceiling mirrors multiply the skyline in every direction, one room is filled with reflective silver balloons, and a glass ledge juts out over Madison Avenue. It is the newest of the three big New York decks and by some distance the strangest.

That is why the reviews split the way they do. Visitors who enjoy a photo-led, slightly theatrical experience rate it the highest of the three, and it is the easiest of them to visit with children. Purists who want an unobstructed skyline view sometimes find the mirrors distracting. Go in knowing it is an experience first and a view second, and it rarely disappoints.

SUMMIT runs on timed entry and draws the longest queues of the three decks, because the mirrored rooms hold visitors far longer than a standard platform does. That makes a prebooked slot more valuable here than almost anywhere else in the city, and it is the main reason to reserve rather than turn up.

Sunset slots are the most popular and the first to sell out. If they have gone, take the earliest slot of the day: the rooms are emptiest, which matters more here than at other decks because the mirrors are far more striking without a crowd reflected in them. Wear something you do not mind seeing in every photograph, and note that the mirrored floor sections mean skirts are worth thinking about.