The View from Here
I’ve only worked in 6 different buildings in NYC and most were more often characterized by the lack of a view than an inspiring or panoramic vista as the movies would have you believe. That had as much to do with being located on lower floors than were available as it did with the close proximity of other, larger buildings blocking the windows from across the street. When I worked at 140 Broadway, the view was of apartments across Liberty Street – entertaining in its way, especially early in the morning, when residents were still at home. At Scholastic, in Soho, we had a dance studio across the way, the one used in Center Stage during an especially egregious scene involving what looks more like aerobics than modern dance, but also there was a rooftop garden, which later figured in providing the single most indelible witnessing of my tenure in that city. The World Trade Center offered extensive views of the Jersey shoreline swamps and petroleum processing stations, but also the Tappen Zee bridge on especially clear days and clouds at your feet some rainy mornings. It was also the most unobstructed view I ever had, although that sometimes made it somehow less interesting than those with some art deco monolith in the way, such as when I worked at Chase Plaza, just off Wall Street. One view I never had was the kind I get now: trees. And birds. (The birds are a bit of a worry sometimes, as they’ll get pretty noisy, and it can sound like you’re in a Tarzan movie as a result – except for the kookaburras, which sound like nothing else.) Now that I live in a country where deciduous trees are the exception, I get lush verdure all year ‘round, admittedly as a result of being out in the suburbs in a landscaped industrial park (not the prettiest one I’ve ever seen, which was about an hour north of Atlanta, Georgia, where office blocks towered up from the edges of heavily wooded State Park land). My preference is for the dynamism of the city, and even more for a view of the water. Unlike NYC’s harbor, Sydney’s is dominated by the Bridge, and pictures don’t do it justice. Yesterday morning, running down the last stretch of Macquarie Street onto the Opera House plaza, the Harbour Bridge’s arc ended in a bit of obscuring cloud tinged pink with the sunrise. As massive as the structure is, it’s like a frame to the Harbour (always capitalized), one of those heavy, ornate frames you’ll see appearing to swallow up an impressionist painting, except that, as with the painting, the frame removes itself from conscious perception without actually disappearing, thereby setting the painting off from all else around it. For such a simple seeming structure, the Harbour Bridge is a visionary piece of architecture, imposing without being an imposition. Perhaps it is a function of life in Sydney that I should find myself mediating on a job change just to get closer to the Harbour; something to explore later.