Occasionally I’ll look at the Manhattan skyline and wonder what it was like in 1931 when people around the world were saying, “Holy shit, did you hear what they just built in New York?” Just get up there and trip out about humanity. And be sure to keep an eye out for the unmarked locked door guarding a set of stairs leading to a hidden terrace that was originally designed as a fucking docking station for zeppelins.
Address
The Empire State Building Observation Deck, 350 5th Avenue #300, New York, United States
Current city: New York
Michael was born and raised in Seattle, and has lived in New York since 2009. He’s done graphic and interaction design for Pentagram and Local Projects, and is currently a designer at the Google Creative Lab.
 

More Places in New York 452

This is the place where I ate my first burger just 2 hours after I arrived in 'tha hood' I loved the place immediately because of the supersweet employees. And the fact that they have al this vintage machines in the place: like an old COKE machine and a cigarette machine as well as a jukebox from the sixties. The fact that they serve ALL DAY LONG BREAKFAST really made me happy, probably because I lived in Berlin before I moved here and there people are endlessly chilling and having breakfast the whole day long anyway! On wednesdays Wally organizes film evenings with funny nineties classics and on thursday evening you can eat a 5 dollar burger menu. While eating your inexpensive burger think of Wall.E.
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Opened in 1985, The Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography was created in order to preserve an unprecedented resource, Herb Lubalin’s vast collection of work. Its goal was to provide the design community with a means to honor Lubalin, and to study his innovative work. The collection also includes work by other eminent designers including Otl Aicher, Rudi Baur, Anthon Beeke, Lucian Bernhard, Lester Beall, Will Burtin, Lou Dorfsman, Karl Gerstner, Tibor Kalman, Alvin Lustig, The Push Pin Studios, Paul Rand, Bradbury Thompson, Massimo Vignelli, and many more. There is also a library of books and magazines about design and typography, an extensive collection of posters, myriad type specimen books and pamphlets.
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I don't go to the movies much but when I do I love coming here... they have the best of the independent and international films and it's the last of it's kind in New York.
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I remember when I saw Shadows, by Andy Warhol in that big room. I was sitting in a sofa, and felt asleep. When I woke up it felt incredible. When my friends come to visit me it's a place where I like to go all together.
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The jetties along Rockaway Beach are one of my regular destinations when I can get out there. I grew up in a Coast Guard family and spent a fair amount of time around the ocean and surfing. I still like to get in the water and this is the first Atlantic-exposed beach on Long Island as you start to get out of the city. When it comes to the environment, constructions like these can be contentious things but they also make for a series of interesting surf spots. Its got a lot of New York metro qualities you might expect including the Subway making its stops a couple of blocks back from the water.
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