New York City Looking North from the Empire State Building, 2013
Archival pigment print
39 × 59 inches
Edition of 5
August 23, 2025
The northern end of the island of Manhattan is seen here through a fog-like veil, with a smattering of highlighted details scattered like petals across the cityscape. The brilliant red highlights draw our eye to one of the city’s iconic yet easily overlooked details: the ubiquitous wooden water towers. New York City's rooftop water towers have a romantic appeal, but they also have real utility, as they use gravity to supply water pressure to any building that is more than six stories tall.
This image is part of a larger body of work by the Spanish conceptual photographer Miguel Ángel García. The work followed the format established by his series Independencias, produced between 2009 and 2012, which likewise used panoramic photographs to highlight recurring architectural details within the skylines of the twenty-seven capitals of the European Union.
