77 Water Street Rooftop Runway

***This place is on private property. Listing for informational purposes only. Please do not visit without express permission from the land owner.*** High above the streets, there sits a hidden runway on the top of a Manhattan building. The biplane "was designed by some guy named Rudolph de Harak and executed by the sculptor William Tarr in 1969," and according to the book New York 1960, Architecture and Urbanism Between the Second World War and the Bicentennial, it's a World War I Sopwith Camel fighter plane, set up there "solely for the delight of denizens of neighboring skyscrapers." One know-it-all on this aviation message board explains why it's only for fun, and not function—noting, it "isn't even wide enough for that plane. Besides, it isn't even 50m long. And it is green. Not even this special Pilatus plane could start or land on that."  At night, from the neighboring buildings, it's possible to see that the runway has functioning lights as well.  The same building has a fake old-fashioned candy store on the ground floor next to the main entrance. The building was empty for most of the last decade. Goldman Sachs took a lease on the building just before the tech implosion of 2000. They never used the space nor did they try to sublease it until 2009. Today, the rusting plane still sits high above the city, just waiting for eagle-eyed people to notice it.