The Western Hemisphere's highest outdoor observation deck, which sits 1,131 feet in the air at the top of a brand-new New York City skyscraper, is now selling tickets.
"Edge," a triangular platform at the top of a newly built tower in Manhattan's Hudson Yards neighborhood, is expected to open on March 11, 2020. It will be a 60-second elevator ride to the 7,500-square-foot viewing deck, which extends out 80 feet from the 100th floor of 30 Hudson Yards, overlooking the New York skyline and the Hudson River.
Edge will be open seven days a week, year-round from 8:00 a.m. to midnight. A Champagne bar inside on the 100th floor will sell drinks and light bites that visitors can enjoy out onto the sky deck.
Tickets are on sale now on the Edge website at $36 for adults. When bought on-site versus online, an adult ticket is $38. Tickets for children ages 6 to 12 are $31 online and $33 on-site, and children 5 and under are free. Special prices are also available for seniors and active and retired members of the US military.
New York City residents, on the other hand, can buy tickets online for $34, making Edge the most affordable of the city's major observation decks for adult city dwellers.
At the Empire State Building, the 86th-floor outdoor observatory is 1,050 feet high and $38 for adults. A new 102nd-floor observation deck rises 1,250 feet in the air and costs $58 for a ticket - but it's enclosed, not open-air. Going to the Top of the Rock at 30 Rockefeller Center, where the upper decks are 850 feet above street level, is $38 for adults.
One World Trade Center's observatory is 138 feet higher than Edge at 1,268 feet above street level, but it's indoor-only. Tickets to the top are $35.
The highest outdoor observation deck in the world sits at the top of Dubai's tallest building. The Burj Khalifa has an outdoor observation deck on the 148th floor, a staggering 1,821 feet in the air.
According to the Guinness World Records, the highest observation deck in the world rises 1,841 in the air at Shanghai Tower, an office and hotel building in Shanghai, China, that was finished in 2015. But that one is indoor only.
Since its opening in March 2019, Hudson Yards has become the most expensive neighborhood in New York City, with a median sale price of almost $5 million.
The neighborhood is home to luxury residential towers including 15 Hudson Yards, where the cheapest condo is $2.6 million, and 35 Hudson Yards, which houses a 60,000-square-foot Equinox Fitness Club, an Equinox hotel, retail spaces, and restaurants, in addition to its high-end residences that start at $5 million.