Best Hotel Rooftops in NYC

The 11th floor opens into sky, steel, and the Brooklyn Bridge directly across the water. The Asian-inspired bites are good enough to notice, but the view is what you're really here for.

Perched on the 40th and 41st floors, this bi-level cocktail sanctuary is a cinematic tribute to the glamour of mid-century Manhattan and James Bond-esque allure. The interior design shifts through eras of elegance, featuring swiveling velvet chairs, brass accents, and floor-to-ceiling vistas of the skyline.

The rooftop bar at the Conrad, with views over the Hudson River, the Statue of Liberty, and the New Jersey shore. Italian-inspired cocktails and small plates. Reopening April 2026.

The outdoor terrace at the top of the building, with unobstructed Hudson River views and programming that shifts from daytime lounge to evening DJ sets. The High Line's northern terminus runs directly below, which gives the terrace a visual continuity with the neighborhood it sits above.

The open-air terrace on the 17th floor, with views over the Hudson River, the High Line, and lower Manhattan. It fills quickly when the weather holds and runs loud into the evening.

A rooftop bar and restaurant that mostly operates as if it doesn't know it sits above a hotel. The energy most nights reads more like a packed downtown event than a hotel amenity. Staying here just means skipping the line.

A rooftop pool one floor below Mr. Purple, where outdoor swimming in this part of Manhattan is genuinely rare. The practical argument for booking a room here becomes obvious when you consider what most nearby hotels offer as an alternative.

A nightclub tucked one floor below the rooftop bar, darker and more contained, entirely invisible from the street. Guests in the building skip the entry dynamics that everyone else has to navigate.

Open-air bar on the 13th floor with one of Midtown's most direct sightlines to the Empire State Building — close enough to feel its actual scale. A retractable glass atrium opens to a wooden deck, so the view works across seasons and the evening stretches as long as you want it to.

270 degrees of Manhattan from what feels like the top of the city. Brudzinski designed the space as a lightbox in the sky, and at certain hours, particularly sunset, it earns that description completely.

A 12th-floor bar and nightclub that operates as its own venue above the Upper West Side — independent from the hotel below but impossible to separate from what made this block interesting after dark. It earned its reputation before Gossip Girl filmed here, and the crowd never really forgot that.

Over a thousand plants suspended above Times Square, functioning as both garden and acoustic technology. The vegetation absorbs enough sound that you can actually hear a conversation without raising your voice.