The District That Inspires®

August 21, 2018

Enjoy NoMad’s 13 Rooftop Bars Before Summer Ends

With the hot, humid, and crowded streets of New York in the summertime, today’s New Yorkers and tourists look for rooftop escapes — they are great places to meet friends and enjoy drinks and cool breezes.

Not surprising, rooftop retreats have a long history in NoMad.  Back in the Gilded Age before air conditioning, most NoMad hotels had rooftop restaurants, such as the one at The Hoffman House and The Martha Washington Hotel (now the Redbury) had a rooftop promenade for its women-only clientele.  But perhaps the most famous rooftop restaurant and entertainment venue was the one on top of Madison Square Garden at 26th and Madison.  Here the floradora girls danced and New York society dined.  It was at this rooftop on a June night in 1901 that one of the dancers’ husbands shot and killed her paramour Stanford White, America’s preeminent architect in what came to be called “The Crime of the Century.”

Things are bit quieter now, but just as much fun.  NoMad’s central location offers rooftop guests breathtaking up-close panoramic views of the Manhattan skyline.  And the diverse rooftop bars feature creative, hand-crafted cocktails with drinks ranging from matcha-infused vodka, with mint, and lime to frozen summertime favorites such as an iced froze, or a tiki hut piña colada . . . you might even be able to have a drink poolside, something unimaginable 100 years ago.

So treat yourself and sip a cocktail or two in the cool sky during the last sultry days of summer. Here are 13 neighborhood rooftops to check out:

230 Fifth, 230 Fifth Avenue

Broken Shaker at Freehand, 23 Lexington Avenue

Cloud Social at NYMA Hotel, 6 West 32nd Street

Fifteen Stories at The Mondrian Hotel, 444 Park Avenue South

Good Behavior at MADE Hotel, 42 West 29th Street

The Heights at Arlo Hotel NoMad, 11 E 31st Street

Hotel Giraffe Rooftop Garden, 365 Park Avenue South

Mykonos Blue Rooftop, 127 West 28th Street

RARE View Rooftop, 152 West 26th Street

Roof at Park South, 125 East 27th Street

Rooftop at Royalton Park Avenue, 420 Park Avenue South

SERRA at La Birreria (Eataly), 200 Fifth Avenue

Tavern 29, 47 East 29th Street