Today was the day. It was sunny. The sky was clear. It was a weekday. The perfect day to go up to the top of New York’s tallest building!
One World Trade Center (also known as One WTC, 1 World Trade Center, 1 WTC, or Freedom Tower) is the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City. One WTC is the tallest building in the United States, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, and the sixth-tallest in the world. The supertall structure has the same name as the North Tower of the original World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
From: Wikipedia
We had been to the impressive 9/11 memorial already. I remembered how busy it was, and I hate standing in line, so I bought the Observatory tickets online. When we arrived, we just walked through to the priority elevator. It felt pretty special, although in all honesty the normal queue was not that bad.
Floating Up and Down Again
Everything was very well organised and smooth. The walls of the elevator consist of screens. As soon as we started to ascend, the screens showed us a 360 video of the city being built. It was pretty cool. If my ears weren’t popping I would hardly have noticed that we had gone up!
Once at the top, we still could not see any windows. We took our places in front of a large screen. After we watched a short video, the screen slid up for the big reveal: a breathtaking view of Manhattan and surrounding boroughs.
We enjoyed walking around, looking for our favourite places that we visited during our stay. We saw Lady Liberty – we could even make out that there was only one boat anchored behind her. Off course we also saw Ellis Island, and we could trace the route we had taken by dinghy to get ashore in Jersey during the first days we were here. The Brooklyn Bridge was easy to spot. It looked so tiny!
Going back down the elevator, the screens made it look like we were gently floating down. It was awesome. Really worth it.
Beau tries out the special iPads that provide info on buildings and landmarks 
Spacegrazer is anchored there, just around the bend 
Brooklyn Bridge 
