Rooftop bars in NYC: visit the city’s best elevated bars
Have a cocktail high above the city and take in spectacular views at one of the best rooftop bars in NYC.
Tue Jun 4 2013
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Ava Lounge
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Photograph: Lizz Kuehl
Rooftop bars in NYC
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Rooftop bars in NYC
Bookmarks Rooftop Lounge at the Library Hotel
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Rooftop bars in NYC
The Delancey
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Photograph: Grace Chu
Rooftop bars in NYC
The Eagle
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Rooftop bars in NYC
Empire Hotel Rooftop
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Photograph: Paul Wagtouicz
Rooftop bars in NYC
Gallow Green
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The Ides at the Wythe Hotel
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Lounge at Pod 39 Hotel
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mad46 Rooftop Lounge
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art Roof Garden Café
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From trendy Midtown clubs to laid-back Park Slope hidden gems, Time Out has found the best rooftop bars in NYC. Read on for our guide to the city’s coolest elevated drinkeries, and find out where you can sip a cocktail or a beer with a gorgeous view of the city surrounding you.
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Ava Lounge
- Price band: 4/4
You’ll need to make yourself presentable to gain entry to the roof terrace of the Dream Hotel—no hats, sneakers or ripped jeans here; you’d only ruin the chic, palm-tree-studded decor. Come for sunset and gaze at the neon dream of Times Square.
- 210 W 55th St between Broadway and Seventh Ave
Bar 13
- Price band: 2/4
Above two floors of NYU students boogying to nightly DJs and the occasional live act is a concrete-floored roof deck sprinkled with palm trees. It may sound a bit grim, but the space transforms at night when the light panels in the walls emit a warm orange hue, although they do restrict the view of the surrounding university buildings. Still, you won’t be complaining when you’re three rounds deep into the daily two-for-one happy hour (5–9pm).
- 35 E 13th St at University Pl
Berry Park
- Price band: 2/4
- Critics choice
Gaze at the Manhattan skyline from across the East River at this 3,000-square-foot roof deck. After a recent renovation, the aerie features a retractable glass roof, so you can hang out when it's sunny or raining. Quaff European brews that skew German, like the Schöfferhofer Grapefruit Hefeweizen ($7), as you chow down on boozing-friendly eats such as bratwurst with sauerkraut ($6). There's also a DJ during the weekly boozy Sunday Brunch (2pm).
- 4 Berry St at North 14th St, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Bookmarks Rooftop Lounge at the Library Hotel
- Price band: 4/4
Dig out your cravat when hitting this year-round 14th-floor lounge. You’ll want to look the part when quoting Dostoyevsky in one of two greenhouses or on the outdoor terrace at this upscale, literary-themed bar. Order the Hemingway cocktail, with aged rum, lime juice, mint and champagne ($15.50); dig into the book collection; and let your imagination soar like the midtown buildings around you.
- 299 Madison Ave at 41st St, 14th floor
The Delancey
- Price band: 1/4
While the music pounds downstairs, this LES rooftop offers a palm-studded oasis with white chaise lounges. On Saturdays between 10pm and 1am, the spot is often packed with large group reservations (fortune, it seems, favors the popular and organized). Head there on Sundays and Mondays for two-for-one well drinks.
- 168 Delancey St between Attorney and Clinton Sts
The Eagle
- Price band: 2/4
This popular gay leather bar can be a bit intimidating for the uninitiated—you don’t want to show up for Wednesday’s Jock Strap Night unprepared. But on Sundays, a friendly (mostly male, mostly burly) crowd assembles on the surprisingly lovely roof deck for a beer blast (5pm–midnight) featuring $3 draft beers, $5 shots of Jägermeister and Jose Cuervo, and DJ Nikko. Check the website for announcements about seasonal parties.
- 554 W 28th St between Tenth and Eleventh Aves
Empire Hotel Rooftop
- Price band: 2/4
This rooftop lounge features 3,000 square feet of outdoor space and private couch-equipped cabanas. Three separate terraces offer views of Lincoln Center and Central Park, and an appropriately sleek bar—constructed of stacked metal pipes—dispenses specialty cocktails.
- 44 W 63rd St between Broadway and Columbus Ave
Gallow Green
- Rated as: 3/5
- Price band: 3/4
- Critics choice
The transportive vibe of Sleep No More, Punchdrunk’s interactive theater piece at the McKittrick Hotel, carries over to the venue’s rooftop bar. Named for a Scottish field where accused witches were hanged, Gallow Green has the feel of a garden party thrown at an abandoned farm. Fairy lights and tattered flags hang between verdant trellises; bartenders sling cocktails like the Vanessa’s Cup (which combines Rhum J.M. Gold rum, Pimm’s, sirop de canne—a simple syrup infused with cinammon, cloves and vanilla— strawberries, ginger and nettle tincture; $14), served by waitstaff dressed in ghostly white. The best seats in the house are inside an artfully ruined antique railcar, whose empty windows are hung with destroyed lace curtains.
- 530 W 27th St, (between Tenth and Eleventh Aves), 10001
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