← Misc · 2022–2026

Views from Up High

Wheels, rooftops, towers and hills: every city I have looked down on, roughly from the lowest to the highest.

Going through four years of photos for the other posts on this page, I kept running into the same kind of picture. It is taken through glass, or over a railing, or from the top of a hill. A city is spread out below, with its streets reduced to lines and its tallest buildings reduced to something you could pick up. Wherever we go, it seems, we end up going up something: a Ferris wheel, a high bar, a tower with an elevator, a hill with a parking lot. This post collects them in one place.

The order is roughly by height, starting with the wheels and ending with the hills, which are a different kind of high. Most of these views already appear in a trip post, and each section links to it. A few, like most of the Los Angeles ones, appear here for the first time. Heights are the published figures for the buildings and hills, not anything I measured.

Wheels

SkyStar, Golden Gate Park · May 2022

The lowest wheel in the set, at about 150 feet, and the gentlest. SkyStar was put up at the Music Concourse in 2020 for Golden Gate Park's 150th anniversary and was meant to be temporary. We rode it after lunch on May 20th, 2022. It is not high enough to show you the city, but it is just high enough to show you the park: the living roof of the California Academy of Sciences, two and a half acres of native plants on green humps, and Sutro Tower standing on its hill behind. The full day is in Road Trips, 2022.

Centennial Wheel, Navy Pier, Chicago · August 2024

About two hundred feet up, at the end of a long road trip. The Centennial Wheel opened in 2016 for the hundredth birthday of Navy Pier, and the Ferris wheel itself was invented for Chicago's 1893 World's Fair, so riding one here felt like the right thing to do. From the top on August 10th, 2024, the carousel and the pier's long roofs were straight below, and the whole skyline fit in one frame, with Lake Point Tower standing alone on the lake side of Lake Shore Drive. More in the 2024 road trip.

The High Roller, Las Vegas · 2022, 2023, 2024

The High Roller is 550 feet tall and opened behind the LINQ in 2014. A full turn takes about half an hour, slow enough that you stop noticing you are moving. I have ridden it three times. The first was on March 16th, 2022, at the end of a desert road trip, with a squall over the mountains. The third was on June 10th, 2024, with my parents. Both times, at the top, I took nearly the same photo: the Flamingo's white towers and pool garden below, and the central Strip behind.

The ride in between was at night, on September 3rd, 2023, the weekend we went to see Adele. At night the wheel is a different thing. The Venetian's long gold façade was lit up like a stage set, Harrah's red sign glowed below it, and the grid of the city ran out in tiny lights to the dark mountains. The posts for those trips are Death Valley, Vegas & Page, Rainbows, Adele and Zzyzx and Las Vegas, Again.

Below us, the Sphere was not open yet, but it was already lit: first in flowing blue stripes, and five minutes later in a swirl of pink, blue and violet.

Rooftops and high bars

POST Houston · July 2023

The lowest view in this post, and still a good one. POST Houston was the city's main post office, built in 1962, and in 2021 it reopened as a food hall and concert venue with a huge rooftop park and farm on top. We went up on the night of July 3rd, 2023, the night before the Fourth. Across the freeway, the downtown towers were lit white, gold and purple. It was a hot, still Houston night, and the rooftop was dotted with people at tables in the dark. The rest of that trip is in Texas, 2023.

A sky lounge in Sanya · February 2023

On the afternoon of February 8th, 2023, we had afternoon tea in a bar high up a building above Sanya Bay, on the southern tip of Hainan. The building's façade has angled metal fins, so the view comes in slices. Between two of them the water ran straight across to the city and the green hills behind it. Turning the other way, the egg-shaped towers of Phoenix Island were close enough to count the balconies. The trip is in China, 2023.

71Above, U.S. Bank Tower, Los Angeles · April 2022

The U.S. Bank Tower is 1,018 feet tall. When it was finished in 1989 it was the tallest building in Los Angeles, and for almost thirty years it stayed that way. 71Above is the restaurant on its 71st floor. We had dinner there on April 9th, 2022, timed for the sunset. At 7:17 pm the sun went down into a haze over the ocean side of the basin. Downtown's towers stood in silhouette below the windows, and the Wilshire Grand's spire, the building that took the title in 2017, rose against the orange sky.

Spire 73, Wilshire Grand Center · December 2022

Eight months later we were on the other side of that view, at Spire 73, the bar at the top of the Wilshire Grand. The tower is 1,100 feet to the tip of its spire, and its top floors hold a hotel lobby, restaurants and the bar. We were there with a friend on the evening of December 11th, 2022. Most of the photos from that evening are of the friend, which is as it should be. The one view I kept is a corner of the window at 8:24 pm, looking straight down on the lit sign of One Wilshire and the streets running off into the dark.

Observation decks

Top of the World, Baltimore · July 2026

Baltimore's World Trade Center is 405 feet tall. It was finished in 1977 to a design by I. M. Pei's firm and is a regular pentagon in plan, which makes it the tallest pentagonal building in the world. It stands on a pier at the edge of the Inner Harbor. The Top of the World is the glass-walled observation level on the 27th floor. On July 5th, 2026, a little after one in the afternoon, the view south showed the harbor's basin, the marinas, the brick promenade and Federal Hill rising behind them. The day is in the July 4th post.

Vancouver Lookout · September 2023

The Vancouver Lookout sits on top of Harbour Centre, which opened in 1977. You ride up in a glass elevator on the outside of the building and come out into a round room with windows all the way around. We went up on September 30th, 2023, a clear autumn day. Downtown was a crowd of towers, old stone and new glass, right below us. To the east the city went flat and green all the way to the towers of Metrotown in Burnaby, and a rooftop of trees just turning orange sat on a new building in the foreground.

To the north, the white sails of Canada Place sat on the harbor, with the North Shore Mountains behind. The rest of the trip is in Fall Colors from Vancouver to Whistler.

The STRAT, Las Vegas · 2022 and 2023

The STRAT is a 1,149-foot tower at the north end of the Strip. It opened in 1996 as the Stratosphere, and its top holds thrill rides, a revolving restaurant and two observation decks. I have been up twice. The first time was at 9:09 pm on March 15th, 2022, when the whole valley was a sheet of lights running out to the mountains. The second was at 2:54 pm on April 8th, 2023. By daylight the north end of the Strip turned out to be mostly empty lots and parking, with a few towers in blue glass and red, and the mountains on the horizon.

Sky View Observatory, Columbia Center, Seattle · June 2023

Columbia Center has been Seattle's tallest building since it was finished in 1985, and its Sky View Observatory is on the 73rd floor, about 900 feet up. That is a good deal higher than the top of the Space Needle. We went up on the evening of June 17th, 2023, under a flat grey sky. Just after seven the cloud broke over Puget Sound, and a band of light came down on the water beyond the waterfront and the Great Wheel. A few minutes earlier, looking south, the football stadium was packed for an event, with the baseball park beside it and the rail yards running past. The rest of that weekend is in Seattle, the Olympics and Portland.

Looking north, the Space Needle was far below, small among the downtown towers, with Queen Anne hill behind it.

360 Chicago · August 2024

The observation deck in the old John Hancock Center is on the 94th floor, about a thousand feet up. The building, finished in 1969, is the black tapering tower with X-braces on the outside, which make the whole façade into one stiff tube. We watched dusk fall from there on August 8th, 2024. The lakeshore curved north in one clean arc, with Lake Shore Drive tracing it and the beaches below. Behind us the grid of the city switched on, one light at a time. The full evening is in the 2024 road trip.

One World Observatory, New York · January 2023

One World Trade Center is 1,776 feet tall, and its observatory, which opened in 2015, takes up floors 100 to 102. We went up on New Year's Day, 2023, in the early afternoon. To the south, the afternoon sun was on the harbor and the water shone silver. The Statue of Liberty was a small dark shape on her island, with ferry wakes drawing white lines around her. The whole holiday is in New Year's on the East Coast.

Ping An Finance Centre, Shenzhen · February 2023

The top of the list. The Ping An Finance Centre is 599 metres tall. It was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox and finished in 2017, and it is the second-tallest building in China. We went up on the afternoon of February 11th, 2023, for afternoon tea at its restaurant on the 118th floor, two floors above the observation deck and more than half a kilometre above the street. The windows lean out between heavy steel mullions, so you look down past your own feet onto the Civic Center's blue roof, shaped like a bird spreading its wings. Around three o'clock, cloud slid down off the northern mountains over the districts beyond the towers, and for a few minutes the city simply stopped at a white edge. More in China, 2023.

Hills above cities

Hills are a different kind of high. There is no glass, and you are looking across at the city as much as down on it. You also share the view with whoever else drove up the hill that evening.

Mount Washington, Pittsburgh · August 2024

Grandview Avenue runs along the edge of the bluff across the Monongahela from downtown, with overlooks built out over the drop. The Monongahela Incline has been carrying people up this slope since 1870. It was built for the steelworkers who lived on top of the hill and worked in the mills by the river. On August 6th, 2024, fast clouds were throwing shadows across downtown, the Point and the bridges, so the city kept flickering between light and shade. From the 2024 road trip.

Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, Los Angeles · January 2025

This one is a piece of history I would rather not have photographed. On January 10th, 2025, three days after the Palisades and Eaton fires broke out, we went up to the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook in Culver City in the late afternoon. At 4:10 pm the downtown towers stood in a brown band of smoke that covered the whole sky above them. Twenty minutes later, a long plume lit gold by the low sun was drifting over the mountains on the far side of the basin. The neighborhoods below looked completely ordinary.

Twin Peaks, San Francisco · 2022, 2023, 2026

Twin Peaks is the pair of hills near the middle of San Francisco, a little over 900 feet high. I have been up three times, and the view changes completely with the light. At 6:25 pm on May 19th, 2022, the whole city was spread out in clear evening light, with the bay and the East Bay hills beyond. At 9:39 pm on November 24th, 2023, after Thanksgiving, it was dark, and Market Street ran down from the foot of the hill to the bay as a straight ribbon of orange lights.

That night, to the north, the Golden Gate Bridge was a thin line of gold lights at the far edge of the city.

The third time was a Monday afternoon, May 25th, 2026, Memorial Day, under big clouds. Salesforce Tower, finished in 2018 and the tallest building in the city, stood over everything, with the Transamerica Pyramid to its left. The first two visits are in Road Trips, 2022 and The Bay Area, Again and Again.

The West Hills, Portland · 2023 and 2025

Twice, two and a half years apart, we ended up at the same bend of road in the West Hills, just below Pittock Mansion. The view is the reason people go there. Downtown Portland is right below the trees, and Mt. Hood, 11,249 feet high and about fifty miles to the east, stands alone on the horizon. At 4:20 pm on July 22nd, 2023, the mountain was a white cone in a hard blue summer sky. At 4:51 pm on November 30th, 2025, it was dusk, the downtown lights were coming on, and the snow on Hood had turned faintly pink. The summer visit is in Seattle, the Olympics and Portland, and the winter one in Oregon, 2025.

Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles · 2022, 2022, 2024

The highest of the hills, and the one closest to home. Griffith Observatory opened in 1935 on the south slope of Mount Hollywood, about 1,100 feet up, and its lawn is where Los Angeles goes to look at itself. I have photos from there on three evenings. The first was a night in March 2022, at 9:56 pm, when downtown was a small island of towers in a sea of lights. The second was on August 6th, 2022, at sunset, looking west toward the ocean.

The third was on January 28th, 2024, a clear winter evening. At 5:20 pm the sky behind downtown went pink and orange, and the towers stood up sharp against it. Five minutes later, on the other side, the Hollywood Sign was a dark silhouette against the same sky. Of all the views in this post, it is the one we can go back to on any evening we like.

Hotel windows

Some of the best views needed no ticket at all. In a city I always ask for the highest floor I can get, and these are the hotel rooms where it paid off. They all appear, with the hotels themselves, in Rooms with a View.

Hotel Edison, New York · New Year's Eve 2022

Our window looked straight down on Times Square. On New Year's Eve, at 8:42 pm, the billboards were blazing and the stage for the midnight countdown was already set up below.

Hyatt Regency Dallas · July 2023

Dallas from a room next to Reunion Tower, at night, with one of the downtown towers outlined in green.

Sable at Navy Pier, Chicago · August 2024

The same skyline as the Centennial Wheel and 360 Chicago, but from the water side: the hotel sits on Navy Pier, so the window looks back across the harbor at the whole city.

Hilton Sydney, 43rd floor · December 2023

The highest hotel room we know we have stayed in, right in the middle of the city. At sunset the towers around us lit up one by one. Straight down was the green dome of the Queen Victoria Building.

Ka Laʻi Waikiki Beach · September 2026

And the gentlest view on this page: a balcony over the lawns of Fort DeRussy, with the sun going down into the Pacific beside the towers of Waikīkī.

Coda: above everything

Two more, from the only vantage points here that weren't standing on anything. On Easter Sunday, April 20th, 2025, we rode the tethered Balloon Safari over the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Looking straight down through the gondola's netting, the round shadow of our own balloon sat in the middle of the park's paths and enclosures. It is a picture of us without anyone in it. That day is in San Diego.

And the highest of all, by a long way: a plane window on December 29th, 2022, at 7:11 pm, coming down over northern New Jersey toward Newark at the start of that New Year's trip. The wing light flared in the dark, and below it the suburbs were a carpet of orange streetlights all the way to the horizon. It is the only city in this post I couldn't name from the photo. The location data says Hasbrouck Heights.

Looking down

Putting these side by side, what strikes me is how much alike the cities look from above, and how different they are once you can name things. From high enough up, every downtown is a cluster of towers, a grid and some water. What makes it Seattle or Shenzhen or Pittsburgh is a stadium, a blue roof shaped like a bird, an old incline on a hill. From up there, half the fun is finding the places you walked past that morning.

The other thing is that height isn't what makes a view. The 118th floor in Shenzhen is the record, and its photos are all taken through angled glass and reflections. Some of the best ones here were taken from a hill with a parking lot, or from a wheel that turns once every half hour.

Built from the photos' timestamps and locations; times are local. Photo locations have been removed from the published images. Heights and dates for buildings and hills are their published figures. Several photos also appear in the trip posts linked above.

Some photos in this post are my wife's.