View of Manhattan from the Empire State

Looking south from the Empire State Building, the island runs all the way down to the harbor — the grid of Midtown giving way to the towers of downtown, with One World Trade rising at the far point and the white pyramid crown of the New York Life Building standing up in the middle distance.

Photographed May 2013. The building's coping curves across the bottom of the frame and the whole of Manhattan stretches out beyond it to the sea. In black and white the panorama becomes a single sweep of stone and light — the classic view, from the classic place to stand.