The city has opened the cupola atop 1 Centre, aka the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building — 500 feet above Lower Manhattan — for free, small-batch tours. However, even on the day the city sent me the press release, all the spots through July 2 were sold out. More spots will open on the first day of each month. The experience is called Centre 360.

There are eight viewing sessions each day, Monday through Friday, from 9a to 5p. Children under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult and must be at least 42 inches tall. Only five visitors can go at a time, leaving from the CityStore.

The city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services, which manages city property, recently renovated the cupola for $6 million, and installed glass safety barriers; the department illuminated the tower in 2021.

Designed by McKim, Mead & White and constructed between 1909 and 1914, the building was designated a New York City landmark in 1966, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and renamed for Mayor Dinkins in 2015. It currently houses more than 2000 employees across a dozen city agencies, but it used to house a lot more. When it opened in 1913, there were 4200 city employees there.

From the tour website: “The site sat above the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company’s planned Chambers Street terminal, making the building the first in New York to incorporate a subway station within its base. Engineers had to thread the foundation around tracks and platforms still being cut. The final cost: approximately $12 million in 1914 dollars, plus $6 million more for the land.”

A hundred years’ inflation demonstrated right there!