I present my compositions from the top of the Empire State Building, looking South, toward Lower Manhattan.  It was an overcast day.  Feel free to skip the commentary and just open the photos.

This photo shows one of the World Financial buildings on the left.  Staten Island is in the background and the cranes on the right are in New Jersey.
NY Harbor - Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

In this photo the Flatiron Building is in the foreground where Fifth Ave meets Broadway.  Following Fifth Ave up the center of the photo, the trees are Washington Square Park.  The Arch at Washington Square Park is almost visible. The bridge in the background is the Verrazano Narrows bridge and connects Brooklyn to Staten Island.  The statue of Liberty and Ellis Island can be seen in the upper right and the tower to the right is in Jersey City, NJ.  
The wide view looking south

This photo shows the Flatiron Building in the lower right corner. The trees in the foreground are Madison Square Park at 23rd Street.  Moving up Broadway to the left and the trees are Union Square Park at 14th Street.  The bridges on the top of the photo are from left to right the Manhattan Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge and they are toll free bridges connecting Manhattan with Brooklyn.
Flat Iron Building

Golden Cupola

Lower Manhattan - I can identify most of these buildings by memory, but I won't bore you with the names.  The red building in the center foreground is one of the buildings of NYU surrounding Washington Square Park.  If you put your mouse pointer on this building then move further downtown and a little to the right you'll reach a rectangular building which is Seven World Trade Center at 60 stories high.  The World Trade Centers One and Two would have been behind this building at almost twice the height at 110 stories, literally scraping the sky.
Lower Manhattan

The thumb is the Empire State Building from Union Square Park at 14th Street.