My Beautiful (Tethered) Balloon

As part of Central Park's 150th anniversary celebration, beginning today you can ride a tethered balloon to a height of 300 feet over over the trees.

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of Olmsted and Vaux's Greensward plan — the original design for the world's most famous park — the Central Park Conservancy and New York City Department of Parks & Recreation invite New Yorkers and visitors to see the City and the Park as they've never seen it before: floating in silence 30 stories in the air!

AeroBalloon™ is an anchored, helium-filled, state-of-the-art balloon that ascends to a height of 300 feet. The balloon will fly daily from July 25 to August 22, 2008 at Cherry Hill in Central Park, and will take up to four passengers at a time for a 10 minute ride. Riders are welcome from 7am to 10pm. Get a spectacular daytime view of Central Park and bustling streets, or wait until sundown and float above dazzling city lights.

The balloon is tethered at Cherry Hill, just west of the Bethesda Fountain. Phone reservations are accepted from 7-10am. After that it's first come, first served. The 10-minute ride is $25, versus $18 to visit Rockefeller Center's Top Of The Rock, which is more than twice as high and you can stay as long as want, but definitely isn't as cool as a balloon ride. I'd think I'd wanna go up at night.