You should visit these rooftop bars in Manhattan

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CCocktails, wine, beer: behind the small terrace bar at Manhattan’s Broken Shaker, the pace picks up speed on a sunny Friday night – two bartenders struggle to keep up with orders. One slides a large ice cube into a whiskey glass, his colleague fills three glasses with rosé, and from the back of the small line, a woman asks if there are margaritas. Almost every seat on the roof of the Freehand Hotel in the Flatiron District is taken.

The bar on the 18th floor is not particularly high by New York standards – the view is nevertheless spectacular. To the south you can see One World Trade Center, to the north the top of the Chrysler Building glitters in the low sun. Anyone who has ever been to New York is probably familiar with the rooftop bars, where guests admire the panorama of the city from the 30th or 40th floor. But even the medium height has a lot to offer. Anyone who drinks on the roofs in the middle of the field often sees Manhattan from a completely new perspective. Below twenty floors, you can not only watch the traffic on the street, but also the architectural mix of old and new always presents itself in a different way. Raised edges and old advertising signs that are fading away on brick facades hold their own next to glass towers whose apartments are sold for tens of millions.


Life is raging here: crowds in “The Ready”.
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Image: Frauke Steffens

The “Broken Shaker” (23 Lexington Avenue) is also a magnet for locals and tourists. The small hotel group opened an outpost of its namesake pool bar in Miami Beach here in 2018. There, the “broken cocktail shaker” is one of the most popular nightlife addresses, and in New York there is also a little southern atmosphere with colorful furniture and tropical cocktails. Because the former George Washington Hotel is one of the oldest buildings in the area, the architects found plenty of nooks and crannies and old brick on the roof — part of the bar wraps around the top of the building on the outside, so it’s a rather narrow hallway sitting at small tables. To the west, towards Madison Square Park, is the New York Life Building with its gold spire.

You’re low enough here to see the traffic on 24th Street. Some of the rooftops have makeshift terraces – here and there are loungers and plastic chairs, and the occasional sunbather shows up. “The sunset here is particularly beautiful because the light is always reflected differently in the facades,” says Emma from Denmark, who is having a beer with her friends Magnus and Anton. That costs about ten dollars here, cocktails with movie names like “Clueless” or “Lost in Translation” are nineteen dollars. Guests can also order tacos or dumplings. It often gets crowded here on weekends and queues form on the street. There are no reservations. Those who make it to the top will be rewarded with a rather relaxed atmosphere. Unlike many trendy rooftop bars, the music isn’t too loud either.

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