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$32 Cover Charge Just To Enter 1 World Trade Center's Restaurant
By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 15, 2015
Modified Apr 15, 2015
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By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 15, 2015
Modified Apr 15, 2015
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If you've bought $32 tickets to go the 1 World Trade Center's Observatory on the 100th-102nd floors, congratulations: You've paid the entrance fee for the restaurant and cafe.
The Post's Steve Cuozzo is apoplectic over this, "One World Observatory’s restaurant ripoff is one of a kind... Just to walk in the door will cost most visitors $32 a head — a fact buried in last week’s cheery announcement about the May 29 opening," where the venues are "One, the inventively named fancy eatery, and two other 'curated' (whatever that means) food venues on the 101st floor — a 'Bar and Grill' and a grab-and-go-style 'Marketplace.'"
Cuozzo spoke to average New Yorkers (and Eater co-founder Lockhart Steele) about the decision to charge all eatery patrons the admission fee—one, who headed the design and construction of the 9/11 Memorial, said, "I don’t think it’s fair at all. I think it should be free, but nothing’s free at the Port Authority"—and laments how the old Windows on the World was more democratic:
Former Windows chef Michael Lomonaco, who today runs Porter House New York, notes, “At Windows, we ran several different restaurants. You could come up to the bar, have a soft drink and a burger, enjoy the views, and leave. There was never a cover charge.”
Lomonaco was too polite to mention that there’s no cover charge at either the reopened Rainbow Room or its SixtyFive bar. Nobody going to them has to pay the $30 general admission to 30 Rockefeller Plaza’s Top of the Rock observation deck...
New York City’s once-plentiful top-floor dining options have dwindled to just two. Long-gone Top of the Sixes, Top of the Park, Nirvana, 14 Wall Street and the Terrace weren’t about great food, but rather the singular pleasure of eating and drinking with the world’s most romantic skyline for a backdrop.
Today, the Rainbow Room — open to the public just one night a week and for Sunday brunch — and the Marriott Marquis’ tourist haven the View are our only full-service, sky-high restaurants.
Legends Hospitality, which manages the observatory and restaurant, claims that dining patrons must be charged the admission fee due to its deal with the Port Authority.
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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