Rooftops

Blog posts have been few and far between this summer. I've been working a lot, at an internship in New York City, and there really aren't a whole lot of abandoned buildings here. What there are a lot of, however, are rooftops. While rooftops aren't abandoned in the traditional sense, they are within the realm of forgotten space. With the exception of a roof garden or deck here and there, most roofs are never occupied. This is truly a shame, because the view from most (especially in a place like New York City) is amazing:

Typical view from a rooftop in Queens.

Another typical view from a rooftop in Queens.

The last two photos were taken from the roof under which I live in New York. It's quite a roof, but going there encouraged me to visit a few others, as well.

It's a shame architects and every day users of buildings don't think of the "fifth facade" more often. The views from, to, and off of rooftops are (like many abandoned buildings usually shown on this site) often overlooked.

Local Architecture Goes to New York

Despite my considering Cincinnati my life long home, I've been spending half of my life the past two or three years in New York at various internships as part of my undergrad, and now my graduate degree in architecture at the University of Cincinnati. Last week I moved back, and this time it's for quite awhile.. I'll be living in NYC until September. In other words, Local Architecture won't be quite so local for the next few months.

Work will carry on, though. There's abandoned buildings and things to climb here as well. Unfortunately, since I arrived five days ago it's rained about 6 inches, so I haven't been exploring much of anything. I did, however, get a chance to explore my roof. So I'll start out my tour de NYC with a few photos of the sun setting over Manhattan via my roof in Astoria in Queens (a lot of these are super hi-res, so click on them to get the full view):

12,000 pixel wide Panorama of the sun setting over Manhattan. It will take awhile to download, but it's worth it. Click on the picture above to see the full-rez version (it's actually only about 1/3 of the actual photo, but I don't have the bandwidth to hand out a 30MB photo).

The view from the roof, still kind of cool despite the gentrified condo tower blocking a bit of it.

CitiGroup Center and Rockefeller Center as seen from my roof.

Wide angle shot, showing some of the neighborhood I live in, Astoria.

Astoria Queens in the foreground, Manhattan skyline in the background. I love this neighborhood; it's got just enough grunge to keep me happy.