Matthew Waller Photography - October 11, 2023

Posted October 26, 2023

After my photography workshop ended, I had a day in New York to enjoy the city on my own unscheduled time and, inasmuch as I was still carrying my camera, have something of a road test for “what I’d learned” in the class. Because for me, there’s no sense walking around New York without a camera.

With the whole city open to me, I chose to do an incurably tourist thing: I walked uptown and went to The Edge, New York’s latest high-altitude observation deck.

The Edge juts out from the 100th floor of the Roboduck Building—sorry, but that’s what I’ve always called it since I first glimpsed it under construction on a visit in 2019; its actual name is 30 Hudson Yards—and is a triangular promontory (very much like a beak) cast of the same sheeny blue-white metal as the rest of the decidedly inhuman structure. Apologies again, but I don’t like Hudson Yards: the towering cluster of asymmetric, apparently windowless skyscrapers seems cut from the same chip of cold ice, a glossy faceless fortress, a modern Mordor of money.

Still, the Roboduck building is happy to let you in to buy your ticket, wait on an enormous line, and ride the swift nonstop elevator (with video accompaniment) to the Edge. The observation floor has an indoor component, with wraparound windows, but the whole point is to step through the glass doors onto the great outdoor deck, 100 floors over the Hudson River. Its centerpiece is a slab of thick glass on which you can stand, sit or sprawl as if suspended above a sheer drop.

At this point I’ll let my photos take over, but with two caveats. First, as always I’m more interested in street photography than views, so I was more out to capture human characters in their interaction with the event than postcards of the city. (I’ve tossed in one of those just for context, but trust me, the views were great.)

The second is that I’m presenting this blog post backwards. My day began with a morning street photography walk from the Bowery up the West Side boardwalk and along Manhattan’s “High Line,” which to me was the more enjoyable part of the day and gave me more human photographs.

But I know you want to see Edge photos, so here they are.

We Control the Horizontal

Tourists at Attraction

(Untitled - postcard view)

Frame the Picture

Swig

Pretty City Selfie

Have to See This

Breezeway

Observation Nation

Deck Chairs

Don't Look Down

Edge Cadets

V for View

Interstitial Official

Seize the Moment

Obligatory Insanity

Rewinding to the beginning of the day, I spent the morning swimming uptown at an angle through glorious light. Crossing over to the West Side, I walked up the Hudson River, first along the park-like boardwalk, then atop the High Line, Manhattan’s elevated pedestrian trail. The sun was making interesting patterns and angles everywhere I looked.

Of course I had a similar down-to-earth stroll back to the hotel after my visit to the Edge, to collect my luggage; some of the photos below are from that. It was a great way to say goodbye to New York.