I guess my reward for getting my work done Sunday afternoon was that I was free to go to the Empire State Building with a friend that night.  It was his last night in NYC, and he really wanted to go to the top of the Empire State Building.  Being one of the only ones finished, I got to go with him.

The Empire State Building is open until 2AM.  We arrived on Sunday around 11PM.  Luckily for us, the skies had finally cleared (there was zero visibility from the top earlier that day).



There was absolutely no line for tickets.  We walked right in.  Tickets to the 86th floor are $25, and you can pay an extra $17 to go to a higher viewing platform.  We stuck with the $25 ticket.  They also advertised $50 passes which let you skip the lines, but there were no lines for us to skip.  We walked right through.





Tripods aren't allowed, but I brought along a small Gorillapod which I used to stabilize my camera.  My lenses (Nikon 1 10-30mm and 30-110mm) aren't quite large enough to just let my camera rest on the edge by itself.  Other DSLR users looked to be having luck just resting their camera on the edge.  I got away with the Gorillapod until the very end, when we were about to leave, and a security guard came over to me and told me that I had to take my tripod off because they aren't allowed (it's seriously like 6" tall).  I didn't argue because I already had all the shots I wanted, but I don't see how my small Gorillapod was any different than just resting a camera on the ledge.



It's pretty easy to pick out Times Square at night...







The tower was illuminated in rainbow colors for New York City Pride Week.







It was really a great time to go to the top of the Empire State Building.  It wasn't crowded at all, and the weather was wonderful.


Empire State Building
350 5th Avenue, New York, NY