New York City Rooftops: Individual Taste on the Heights

"NYC Rooftops"
Trendland (May 31, 2010)

"Nowadays, Cyril and I, find ourselves walking the streets of NYC and staring up at all the rooftops, dreaming about our very own New York City rooftop atrium, merging architectural sculpture and botanical madness. Jwilly tapped into that fantasy with his collection of NYC rooftop photos.

"Though his photos don't even begin to touch on New York's most exquisite rooftops, they give you a glimpse of what is above the sky-scrapping madness...."

The post has 16 photos in all, of 15 remarkable rooftops. There isn't much text, and nothing about the location of the photos for the first 13. Apart from "New York City" - which covers quite a lot of territory.

Another set, provided by Marie-Joelle Parent, tells where the roofscapes are: which I really appreciated.

The original set includes a few whose colors remind me of the old colorized postcards: I suppose it may have been the lighting that day, or maybe the images were processed to pull out details.

I don't quite buy either "madness" in the post's introduction. I agree that the design of contemporary cities, experienced from street level, needs serious re-thinking. I also think that folks, left to their own devices, are apt to create residential designs that could make a professional decorator shriek. But "madness?" I wouldn't go that far.

Here are a few of my favorites:


(from Jwilly, via Mini Boss, via Trendland, used w/o permission)


(from Marie-Joelle Parent, via Trendland, used w/o permission)

That's a closeup of a scene shown in "Green Diamond in a Upper East Side Rooftop, from Marie-Joelle Parent.

I'll say it: that patio design is a gem.