Midtown: the icons, walked efficiently
The Empire State, Bryant Park, Grand Central's ceiling, the Chrysler spire, and Times Square done fast. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Empire State Building
Start under it, not in it. The queue for the observation deck eats a morning; the building reads better from the corner of 34th and Fifth, where the setbacks stack up the way Lamb drew them in 1931. Go up only if the sky is clear.

2. Bryant Park
Cut up to the lawn behind the library. Coffee from the kiosk, a chair you can drag wherever you like — the one Midtown square that lets you sit without buying anything. The carousel runs for the children; the gravel paths are for everyone.

3. New York Public Library (Stephen A. Schwarzman Building)
Patience and Fortitude, the two marble lions, hold the steps on Fifth. Go in — it's free — and up to the Rose Main Reading Room, half a city block of oak tables under a painted-cloud ceiling. The quietest room in Midtown.

4. Grand Central Terminal
The concourse is the point: the green celestial ceiling with its backwards constellations, the light coming sideways through the high windows. Down on the dining-concourse level, stand a friend in the opposite corner of the tiled arch outside the Oyster Bar and whisper — the whispering gallery carries it across.

5. Chrysler Building
Step out onto Lexington and look up at the spire — the stainless-steel sunburst crown, best in low morning light. You can't go above the lobby, so do the lobby: African-marble walls and a ceiling mural of aeroplanes and the building itself.

6. Times Square
Do it fast and on purpose. Come in along 42nd Street, take the wall of light and the red TKTS steps for two minutes, then leave. Standing still in the crush is the tourist's mistake; you've seen it, keep moving back east.

Midtown: the icons, walked efficiently