Another exercise in raiding my photo collection, in order to practise layout. No messing with the photos, other than scaling and cropping, the focus is entirely on what can be done from the panel layout to communicate the sense of place.
Manhattan is most obviously represented by grids. (As an aside, David Mazzuchelli and Paul Auster do some incredible symbolic/visual stuff with grids in "City of Glass", I'd recommend it!). A tight, claustrophobic grid communicates the street level activity, punctuated by the massive scale of the skyscrapers and the Hudson river.
Side-stepping the obvious, what worked here (IMO)?
adding a curve to the big panels. Breaks up the gridlines with a bit of variety, and suggests a curved horizon
repetition, especially in the busiest section on page 2
breaking up the grid with smaller and bigger panels, adds to the overall "noise level"
putting the big panels upside down - the top panel on p1 is kind of ambiguous to begin with, flipping the hudson was just spur of the moment, and I think it worked.