You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts. Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@gmail.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.
A reader writes:
The highway in the photo appears to be a US Interstate. And the location appears to be non-mountainous. The foiliage indicates an area that is south of the northern US, but north of the southern US. Having just got back from a semi-cross country drive, the area reminded me of a particular city we drove through: Kansas City, Missouri.
Another writes:
This looks a lot like Oklahoma City, specifically the Bricktown portion of the city. If I had the time, inclination, and ability, I'd zoom in on the overpass section of the photo to see if there's a minor league baseball park hidden among those buildings and a rip-off of San Antonio's Riverwalk; but I don't. So that looks like I-35 running through the city, crossing the north fork of the Canadian River.
Another:
Oooooh, oooooh! Pleasant Point, West Virginia! It's the location of the Mothman sightings. This guess is based on the overall stubbiness of the buildings, the nearby river and bridge, and the fact that it would make for an interesting VFYW contest location.
Another:
My guess: Memphis, Tennessee. The photographer is looking south at the I-40 bridge that crosses the Mississippi River (on the right) and lands in Arkansas. You can see Mud Island and the old downtown. We're also looking toward Beale Street and, beyond that, well beyond view, the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was shot, which is now the National Civil Rights Museum. To the right, outside the frame, is the Pyramid, which, in my opinion, mars the Memphis skyline.
If I am right, I owe it to the fact that I just visited Memphis for the first time on a work trip. I stayed at the Peabody Hotel (with the twice daily March of the Ducks), ate ribs more than once a day, and walked along the Mississippi. And enjoyed the hospitality that is uniquely a feature of the American South.
Not Memphis, but we did feature the city a few months ago. Another reader gets it:
Thanks for throwing us an easy one.
I knew at first glance that this was Richmond, Virginia, a city I have never spent time in but have driven through many times and always marveled at the beautiful old train station right next to the interstate after the curve.
A visual entry:
Another reader:
Finally, one that I recognized within 30 seconds of viewing. This is an eastern view from the Bank of America building in downtown Richmond. Quiet a coincidence: I was on the phone with my dad, who lives and works in the area, when I saw the view. I used to live past the interstate on 18th and Main. The old train station is the red building to the left; just by the interstate. Jefferson's VA Statute of Religious Freedoms was signed in that first parking lot. There is a plaque commemorating it on a building nearby. The Virginia capitol building is just to the north west of the building. The James River is to the right. In 2003 there was tremendous flooding in the area by the interstate.
Another:
I know this area well, having lived here after college before moving to DC. That area is known as Shockoe Slip – the downhill slope into Shockoe Bottom where all of the tobacco warehouses are and now the high-end lofts and restaurants. The clocktower of the old mainstreet station sits beside I-95 and welcomes people to the city. I was lucky enough to ride into the station when it reopened in 2003 working for then-Senator George Allen. Beautiful station.
Another sends the above photo. Another reader:
In the upper left, there is the steeple of St. Johns Church where Patrick Henry gave his "Give me liberty or give me death" speech. It's hard to point out, but the oldest Masonic Hall in the US is in the shot too. I've looked at this contest for years and would LOVE to finally have a shot. Please, oh please! Choo, choo, choose me! (It is a train station after all that gave it away and I'm a coveted female reader.)
Another view of the station:
The photographer adds, "As a kid driving with my family south to Florida, I was convinced we could indeed touch it as we drove by." Another reader:
Holy S*#t I GOT ONE!!! Crap … you know what, I just realised … I got this one. That means it must be really easy and EVERYONE WILL and they all got their answers in way before I did.
A few hundred, in fact. Another reader goes for the exact window:
While I'm a long-time reader of the Dish, and an occasional e-mailer, I've never entered this contest before. I'm continuously amazed at your readers' ability to discern the exact window of a building with just the most miniscule of clues. But this
one just seems impossibly easy. Older American city meant East coast. On a river. Major highway, elevated, running through it. It took me all of 15 seconds of looking at the picture to realize that's I-95 right in the middle of downtown Richmond, VA. It was the red brick building with the steeple overlooking the highway that did it. I live in North Carolina and once or twice a year drive up to D.C. Downtown Richmond is one of the highlights of the trip as it breaks up the monotony of highway driving.
A couple more minutes of Google maps searching took me to the Bank of America Tower, looking Southeast, from one of the top floors. It's a 26-story building, but I'm not about to get into geometric calculations to figure the angle to the forebuildings. The only way to win this particular contest out of the myriad of really close entries is to make a non-obvious guess. So I'll say it's not from the top floor, or even the next, but the 24th floor. There's a law firm on the 24th floor, and I'm guessing that lawyers are more apt to read the Dish than other professions. It looks to be one of the skinny windows. So I'll guess the middle skinny window in the third set of skinny windows from the left side of the building (see attached photo).
So close. Another nails the right floor:
Never responded before, but I grew up there, used to work a few blocks over and the shock of recognition was too much not to respond. So this is the view looking East at I-95 and Shockoe Bottom from the Bank of America building at 12th and Main. You can even see the ugly, beige aggregate material that they used for the façade of the building at the bottom of the photo. I'll just guess on the floor – 23rd?
Two other readers correctly guessed the 23rd floor, but only one of the three has gotten a difficult view in the past (last week's view of Puerto Vallarta, in fact) without winning. That reader writes:
Sometimes you get lucky.
I swore the reddish-brown building on the left was a church and scoured Google images for it, including going through a list of every Catholic cathedral and basilica in the southern half of the US. The low-res image looks quite close in style to the Basilica of St. Lawrence in Asheville, NC. My wife saw the train tracks, but we didn't put the two together. Since the vantage point had to be at least 20 stories up and the trees were fully green, we finally just darted around big cities in the southern US on Google Earth until spotting the whitish domed structure that is the Richmond Main Street Station, of which my "church" is actually the main entrance. The window itself is clearly in the Bank of America building at 1111 E. Main Street, facing southeast. We think 23rd floor to get that kind of vantage point.
Oh, and based on the reflection, the photographer looks to be married.
The photographer is also a history buff:
The view is looking east from the 23rd floor of the Bank of America building – the offices of Sands Anderson PC law firm.
The Union Army came along this route on the morning of April 3, 1865 after the Confederate Government, and Lee's Army, fled the City the day before. The road on the left side of the frame is State Route 5 – in the City of Richmond it's Main Street, turning into Williamsburg Rd. and then, outside the City, it becomes New Market Road which is what it was when Grant's troops marched down it 147 years ago. Retreating Confederate soldiers were ordered to set fire to armories and bridges on their way out of the City. The resulting fires engulfed much of the City and much of the capital was lost. City leaders made their way to Union lines and pled for help saving the City. The Union Army put out the fire.
The highway cutting left to right across the frame is I-95 (south-bound travel is heading to the right). Main Street Station, built in 1901, is the orange brick and teracotta roofed building just on the other side of the highway. The little strip of water on the right-middle of the frame is an old canal that carried tobacco to warehouses along Tobacco Row. They're mostly offices and condos now, but one of them is the Virginia Holocaust Museum.
The river on the far right is the James River named for King James I. The James is navigable from the Chesapeake Bay right up to Richmond at which point the falls in Richmond, the country's only Class 5 urban rapids, made the river impassable to commercial shipping. Richmond, you may know, got its name from planter William Byrd in 1737 who was struck by the close resemblance of the view from the falls of the James River to that of the River Thames from Richmond Hill.
(Archive)
You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts. Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@gmail.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.
A reader writes:
Hmmm, red tile roofs, palm trees, sun in the west (or east?) … this has to be in southern Italy. I'm going off a hunch that it's on the northern coast of Sicily. I'm going with Cefalu because this does not quite seem like Palermo.
Another writes:
My partner and I, wrapping up a vacation with our boys in your fair city, recognize those roof tiles as being the same as those we saw in the walled portion of the beautiful city of Dubrovnik, where we honeymooned in 2003. The roof tiles were in patches of lighter and darker hues reflecting original tiles untouched by the shells of the Serbs, and replacement tiles. This scene looks to be not in Dubrovnik proper, so we will guess just north of Dubrovnik. The Adriatic looks just as calm in this photo as we remember it.
Another:
I'm guessing this is a Portuguese island, and since I've never been to the Azores, I'm going with Funchal, Madeira. The red tiles, the satellite dishes, the marine haze, and the water being far below, as though the buildings were above a steep grade, remind me of Madeira. I didn't submit a guess of Portugal (#53) or a former colony like Mozambique (#54), the last times I saw those red tiles, and I really should have at least tried. I had just got back from Madeira and sent in a VFYAW that was posted.
Another:
Spent a lot of time looking up the red satellite dish and where they was used. Unfortunately the only place I could find that had red satellite dishes were Thailand. Since your clue said it was in the Western Hemisphere I will just throw out a guess: Limon, Costa Rica.
Another:
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Best spam ever. Another reader:
The Breakers, Palm Beach, Florida? A wild guess. But who are those men on the roof?
Another:
Las Gaviotas, Baja California is a walled community a north of Ensanada. It's a great place for Southern Californians to take a brief respite from Southern California by going to "Mexico," and staying in a walled fortress where the homes are built with nearly adjoining walls. The entrance is guarded by Federales whose enforcement of the community's rules (no pot! no nudity!) comes with the implied threat of a Mexican jail. It's a lot funner than it sounds, especially if you like drinking on a balcony overlooking the Pacific while anticipating lobster and tuna steaks for dinner. Also, it has a semi-decent surf break within its confines, which is a plus, as none of the local Baja hoodlums can make it past the Federales to threaten your wave. Instead, you get threatened by the same cretin from Orange County you went there to avoid in the first place. In any case, the view from the window looks like it was taken from one of the houses that its in the back of the compound, which would put it way to close to the old highway to be nice house …
Even though I'm probably wrong, I appreciate the opportunity to wax nostalgic about Las Gaviotas, I spent more time there with great friends, having great times, than was healthy.
Getting close. Another:
Cancun, Mexico? This is the first time I've even been close to recognizing the VFYW. Maybe it's just the fact that I used to go to Mexico every year around this date on the calendar, but that looks a lot like the Yucatan peninsula. Or maybe it's Puerto Vallarta …
It is:
First time entry, and I knew it the moment I saw it! This has to be a view out toward the sea from the center of town in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico. My best guess is that the picture was taken from the building at the northwest corner of Matamoros and Galeana. I recognized the Malecon immediately, the wonderful seaside promenade that has just been completely redone and is beautiful. And the white double-hipped roof must be right next to Senor Frogs – that awful tourist trap no one should get caught in. My boyfriend and I just strolled this stretch of town when we were down visiting his parents for Thanksgiving. They live in the very gay Zona Romantica – very helpful in luring their son to visit.
A visual entry:
Another:
The view is of buildings overlooking Puerto Vallarta's Malecon. It's of a special spot too; a pivotal location in a great movie that helped put Vallarta on the map and gave it a place in Hollywood romance lore. As every guidebook and tourist map will tell you (over and over again), Puerto Vallarta was made famous to Northerners by John Huston's 1964 Night of the Iguana, and by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who conducted their notorious affair there throughout its filming.
In the movie, Burton plays Reverend Lawrence Shannon, a disgraced priest who's been kicked out of his own church for being too hands-on with a "very young Sunday school teacher." He's now a tour guide and his current, thankless task is shuttling a group of Baptist schoolteachers around Mexico. These hens are headed by a suspicious, joyless harridan who is chaperoning her Lolita-like niece (played, naturally, by Sue Lyon). It's an impossible situation.
What's special about the spot shown in the contest photo? In the lower left, in the open space with the palm trees, you'll see a stubby black and white striped truncated obelisk. It's an old light house. Watch for it in this video at the forty-two second mark; you'll see that this week's VFYW is of the exact location where Burton's Reverend Shannon loses his shit:
I'm sure you'll get a ton of correct submissions for this one – the view is instantly recognizable if you've spent any time walking around PV's old town. (The iron bars on the windows are a recognizable feature too – sadly, they are everywhere there and they are not decorative.) The window is on the top floor of the Condominio Marina Del Rey, on the corner of Calle Galeana and Calle Matamoros. Specifically, it's at 20°36'34.45"N, 105°14'0.53"W
Another who got the right address:
We enjoyed this one. The red satellite dish stood out. The logo seemed to match Dish Network, which limited it to the US, Canada, and Mexico. But the red dish itself only appears in images from Mexico. The silhouettes on top of the building seemed like it would be helpful, but no dice (afterwards we found that they don't even appear on Google's latest street view of the area). The small "lighthouse" on the left seemed like a longshot. But a math prof at University of North Carolina apparently really likes light lighthouses. Bingo! There's our light house.
Another asks:
What the heck is that SWAT team doing on the roof of the building at the center of the photo? Maybe Malia Obama visited Puerto Vallarta during her spring break trip to Oaxaca?
Another finally solves the mystery:
This week's photo was taken from one of the condos facing the ocean, I'm guessing the 3rd floor, at Condominio Marina del Rey, 511 Matamoros in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico. I was just in Puerto Vallarta last week on a side trip from Guadalajara where we were visiting my husband's family; it is a lovely town. The building in the center of the photograph along the malecon and next to the lighthouse houses La Destileria restaurant and the building just in front of it with the twin peaked silver roof is Senor Frogs. The small black figures that you see on the roof of the building to the right are cutouts of KISS and assorted other rockers that adorn the Bebotero Bar:
Determining the winner this week was tough, but the following reader has gotten the highest number of previous views correct without winning yet:
After getting stumped on a few previous ones, I'm glad to see you post a place that I would recognize anywhere. The giveaway is the small lighthouse (el faro) which places this in Puerto Vallarta, a place I know very well.
Originally famous because of the gossip and tawdry details surrounding the Night of the Iguana, the town has grown dramatically over the last few decades. It is now quite a popular destination for Canadians and Americans and has a very active gay scene. Frankly, I would recommend it for your next vacation; it's hard to beat its Mexican charm, food or views of the bay, especially in the surrounding towns of Mismaloya and Boca de Tomatlan. I've been going there since I was a kid, and as much as it has changed, it's still one of my favorite Mexican beach towns.
As to the specific location, this seems to have been taken from the Condominios Marina del Rey, 511 Matamoros, some condominiums with enviable views of the bay. It's impossible to get a picture of the windows from the front, but I've attached a picture using Google street view:
I'm guessing that this picture was taken from the third floor on the easternmost window. After getting so many near misses, I'm hoping this one finally does the trick.
The caption from the submitter:
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, view from calle Matamoros 511, unit #302, March 5, 2012, 8:30 am.
(Archive)
Clue: It's in the Western Hemisphere.
You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts. Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@gmail.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.
A reader writes:
I have my four kids with me (11, 9, 7, 1). We're guessing Dublin, Ireland:
1. Cars parked on left side of street – not US, likely Europe.
2. Weather looks non-summer like – implies Northern Hemisphere.
3. My wife and I traveled to Dublin once, and it looks like one of the main streets where my sister-in-law worked. Maybe Grafton street, where the Molly Malone statue resides?
4. Today is St. Patrick's Day … maybe too easy, but a reasonable guess.We've never won, and my kids love playing! If wrong, we'll keep trying.
Another writes:
Kiev, Ukraine? I think that because the scene looks cold, stark, and surprisingly well constructed. Please tell your American readers that Kiev is great – it is a beautiful surprise that offers Old World culture and delicious food, while still qualifying as a "foreign land" – kind of like how Prague and Budapest felt 20 years ago.
Another:
I don’t know if this disqualifies me because I live an hour away, but I believe the VFYW is taken in Syracuse, NY – the black tower in the back is one (of the two) AXA Towers. The crane is part of the ever-present construction at SU. I am not too sure of the street – either Lafayette or State, looking onto Salina Street. It is near the Armory Square neighborhood. (I was so tempted to cheat with Google, but I stayed strong.)
Another:
Well, the charming early-20th century architecture and the empty streets makes it pretty clear that this is the Rust Belt. And after a whole lot of Google map and image searches of the cities of the Great Lakes, Ohio Valley, and Mississippi River, I got frustrated with my inability to find this building, so I'm just going to go with my gut reaction that this is Buffalo. Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, and Kansas City are too densely built up, and Pittsburgh and Cincinnati have too many hills.
Another:
Portland, Oregon? I just feel it viscerally. Has to be the SW near Pearl District somewhat close to Burnside. I don't see the distinctive water fountains but they are not on every street. I miss my rainy hometown.
Another:
Really, how the hell can anyone get this without having been there?
That said, the buildings scream turn of the century America, and the scale screams Midwest cowtown, along with the empty streets. I'm going with Cheyenne, Wyoming on a recent Sunday.
Another:
It sure looks like a building I remember in my hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska. I've been away long enough that I can't be sure if all the details are right. If I am right, the camera is facing east onto the intersection of 13th and N Streets. Also, it looks like the picture was taken from inside one of the "sky-walks" connecting various buildings downtown.
Another:
I'm almost certainly wrong, but that red building kinda sorta maybe looks like the Taft in New Haven, so that's my guess. The only other time I've had an intuition about a View was when I saw this one and immediately thought of my summer in Nice, France. I shrugged it off and figured your ridiculously good readers would get it. I would have won! I've been kicking myself ever since. Never again.
Another:
I know my "guess" is wrong, but the architecture, the gauzy effect of the screen window, and the fact that I just finished Stephen King's 11/22/63 immediately made me imagine this was the View From Oswald's Window.
Another:
Fort Worth, Texas? Looks like the old Hotel Texas where John F. Kennedy spent his last night on earth, in the foreground. I grew up in the city and know that one as the grand old hotel. Then again, that building could be in almost any midwestern or southwestern city – KC, Albuquerque, Des Moines, Tucson, Denver, OKC.
Another:
I almost spit my coffee back in my cup when I saw the picture. It is of my office building in which I am currently sitting! This picture is of 4th Street in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma. The building in the foreground and to the right is the 320 S. Boston Building. The intersection in the picture is of 4th Street and Main Street. The first floor of the building with the red overhangs above the window in the background is an Arby's fast food restaurant. The picture was likely taken from a window in the First Place Tower, which sits at the corner of 4th Street and Boston Avenue.
I don't know how to do all the fancy graphics most winners do to show from where the picture is taken, but I have attached a screen shot of Google Maps:
Another:
A flood of memories just came rushing back to me. The intersection in the photo is 4th and Main in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma where I went to college. Something about the combination of the style of the brick building and the red awnings instantly triggered my memory, plus it doesn't hurt that my first real job was across the street from where the photo was taken. The ground floor of the brick building with the large arched windows used to be a beautiful bank (I am fortunate to have been inside) when Tulsa was booming with oil riches, but it has sat empty for easily over a decade as energy companies migrated to Houston starting in the early 1980s and the city grew away from downtown.
Another gets close to the right window:
At first I thought: Surely not! There is no way that is my hometown on the Dish. A quick Google Map search turned up nothing promising, so I put it in the back of my mind and carried on with my day. But after my two year old finally went to sleep, I thought I'd try again. Sitting in the quiet, my wife enjoying The Hunger Games before the movie comes out, I had that sudden rush of excitement that other Dish readers know: I found it! Tulsa, Oklahoma! Specifically the Boston Building – 400 S Boston Ave – 10th Floor – Suite 1002.
I wish I knew more of the history of Tulsa so I could write a page and a half on why the buildings in the picture are significant. I have enjoyed reading up on some of them as I did my research and struggled over what to write you. Can I come up with a story that will get me in the "Another" category? Should I talk about how this is my first contest, yet I read each and every one with gusto on Tuesdays. Or how getting this one right will lead me to now participate in the contest rather than watch from the sidelines?
Or I can just say thank you for showing a corner of my world to the world at large. Usually when I hear Oklahoma in the national news I can't help but cringe. From Inhofe to Sally Kern, there are some here who seem to want to make life miserable for those of us who are tolerate and open minded. So thank you, Andrew.
Another gets closer:
Long time reader, first time contest answer-er. I have always wanted to play this but just am not very good, but I instantly recognized this as my hometown. I am a few blocks from it right now. The Disher was on the 10th or 11th floor of this building that I have attached a picture of, and their window faces west. It is in Tulsa's deco district downtown – the oil boom brought some amazing art deco architecture to our city. The first building is the Beacon Building, and I am not sure what the name of the white building is, but there is an Arby's on the first floor.
The winner nails the right floor:
Looking west down Fourth Street from the west side of The Boston Building (400 South Boston Avenue). I will guess the 11th floor.
Another reader also zeroed in on the 11th floor, and there was no way to break the tie (both were first-time players), so we'll have to send out two books this week. The second winning entry:
Holy crap! That’s my city. I have no idea why, but I always just assumed I was the only person in Oklahoma who read the Dish every day.
The picture was taken in Tulsa, Oklahoma from the Boston Building on the southwest corner of 4th and Boston downtown. The window it was taken from faces west and we’re looking sort of northwest toward where the Arkansas River passes downtown Tulsa. The crane in the center of the photo is part of construction on a new office building going up a few blocks over. The brown building in the forefront is the Reunion Center, and, given the photographer’s relative height in comparison, I’d say this photo was taken from the 11th floor of the Boston Building. This would likely put the photographer in the Street Law Firm. I work across the street at the 320 South Boston Building. Here’s the view from my window of the building from which this photo was taken:
These two buildings are crawling with lawyers … beware!
(Archive)
You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts. Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@gmail.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.
A reader writes:
My friend and I are submitting separate entries because we can't agree. Definitely Germany. To me this feels like a pic of Frankfurt in the 1980s (because of the graffiti), perhaps from close to the Gerichtshof looking west or northwest, but we can't get the tall buildings to match any we know today. My friend says that suggests Berlin, which is one German city poor enough that it might choose to let its graffiti stand and modern enough to have mini-skyscrapers. I'm going with my gut and go with Frankfurt.
Another writes:
The combination of centuries-old buildings with skyscrapers makes me think that the view should be from a North American city. I choose Quebec because the skyline is very open (Montreal would have a much crowded space). On the other hand, it could be other small North American city, as usual – so hard to make a guess with the VFYW.
Another:
Easy-peasy: Vienna, the Heldenplatz, by the Hofburg palace. Scene of a vicious speech by Hitler in 1938 to hundreds of thousands of people. Oh, I see: he made the speech on March 12 – 74 years ago this week. I assume the picture is taken from a window of the Museum für Völkerkunde. I bet there are a number of former volunteers from the American Bar Association's Central Europe and Eurasia Initiative who know the spot. Vienna was a common R&R destination for those of us working in the Balkans in the 1990s, and one of the cheapest pensions in the city was located on the other side of the passageway.
Another:
Daily reader, but I've never participated in VFYW contest before. Last May we went to Prague for the first time, and this picture immediately looked familiar. However, I am not a good sleuth online, so I am sending a picture of the one place in Prague that it reminded me of.
Another:
This is my first and probably last submission for a long time. I have a three year old and my wife is to be induced on Monday with our second boy. So I'll be lucky to sleep and sit down, let alone spend time on this. Anyway, the yellow building and graffiti led my to Zagreb. I believe the building to the right of the one straight ahead is the new building for the Zagreb stock exchange. I can't get Google streetviews, but this is my best guess.
Another:
HOLY SHIT I GOT ONE!
This contest has been a constant puzzle to me. Every now I then I got close but never really have the time to invest, especially since most of the images are complete
mysteries to me. However, this one was easy: Warsaw, Poland. Being from the Czech Republic, I have a good eye for recognizing post-Soviet cities. What gave it away was a "Pica" graffiti sign on the picture – a common Slavic word for the female genitalia. The street sign graphic after some googling indicated that the location is in Poland. The rest was easy, especially since the giant Palace of Culture and Sports is visible in the back. The Street name is Kubusia Puchatka.
I have lived abroad extensively in various countries, yet I have never been to Poland. I will put it on my list to celebrate my first correct guess! Unfortunately since it took me less than 15 minutes to guess it, I would say that another 284 people were faster. Oh well, still made my day.
Closer to 150 actually – one of our easiest contests yet. Another correct entry:
The shock and delight of recognition! It's Warsaw – a city I visited often while teaching English in Poland in the '90s. Delighted to see the sign for the dentist's office – Lekarska-Stomatologiczna – is still there, just below the street sign. A small detail I remember from when I took a picture of this very same street sign 15 years ago, trying in vain to frame the photo without it. Yup, still there, as is the ever-present graffiti.
The photo is taken from just above the southern end of Ulica Kubusia Puchatek – Winnie the Pooh Street. The view is to the west, southwest along ulica Warecka as it passes under two symmetrical pre-war apartment buildings, painted that wonderful old-world faded gold color, that anchor the lower end of the Winnie the Pooh Street. The photo must be taken from the 3rd floor apartment, northern window, of the bridge part of the identical building that it is facing. Just up the street is the Museum for the History of Polish Jews. The location is just west of ulica Nowy Swiat – New World Street – an elegant street of cafes and luxury shops. The old Vienna Café – sadly now gone, but both elegant and sordid in its day – was just a few steps away on the corner of ulica Swietokryszka and Nowy Swiat. The Blikle Café, with its wonderful glazed donuts, stuffed with rose petal preserves, is just a 100 yards away. Here's the street sign from the VFYW photo in close-up.
Another:
I figured this out by starting with the road signs. Obviously Europe, but the parking sign with the little rectangle (at first I thought it was an envelope) is a reserved parking spot sign that seems to be uniquely Polish. The street sign on the building to the right of the street has a band of red underneath. This indicates the neighborhood, and seems to be found only in Warsaw. After that, it was a matter of looking up skyscrapers in Warsaw to identify what turned out to be the Intercontinental. I poked around in Google Earth for the rest.
Another who poked around:
Another:
This is the first one I've ever gotten, so I imagine many others got it too, and even so I needed a bit of luck, it being in my country of birth. My hometown (?ód?) has the same style of street signs – I guess it's standard in all of Poland. In the shot, you can see two of Warsaw's most prominent buildings, the massive Stalinist "masterpiece" of the Palace of Culture and Science, and the decidedly more modern Intercontinental Hotel. From there I just followed the apparent sight line East until I saw an overhang, or rather two, on Warecka St: the one in the shot, and the one from which the shot was taken (and when I realised the building was the Polish Institute for International Affairs, I knew it had to be right).
Another:
The spire in the middle of the photo is the Palace of Culture, that Stalinist abomination which planners have been trying to hide for the last two decades by building around it.
Another:
Knew this one straight away – I staggered drunkenly with the girlfriend through the very archway shown in the picture whilst on a trip to Warsaw just before last Christmas, and I remember her pointing out the Winnie the Pooh plaque to me. That night was pretty crazy – we wound up at an underground gay bar (not just underground, but with a disguised entrance) listening to drag queens singing Polish Christmas classics. Thanks for the memories.
Another:
It's probably too easy this week for me to actually win it. So now I know how to say Winnie the Pooh in Polish. Happy birthday, me.
From a multimedia entry:
Another reader nails the exact location:
I think this will go down as your easiest VFYW yet. First of all, there is a clock tower in the picture, and when you search "clock towers" in google images this building is the first result. The clock tower is the Warsaw Palace of Science and Culture. The other tall building on the right side is the Intercontinental Warsaw. A little triangulation led me to the address: Warecka 4; 01-001 Warszawa, Poland. This looks like its part of (or connected to) the Polish Institute for International Affairs, with which your reader is probably associated. Here is my guess on Google Maps.
A visual version:
A photo version:
Dozens of readers have similarly accurate entries. But the winner this week is the reader who has gotten several difficult views in the past without yet clinching the prize:
Won it with a bank shot. One more reader:
So much to like in this contest: some history, some Warsaw, some Winnie the Pooh. But let me start in November 1937, when my father was born in Poland's capital.
It was not a propitious time to be born a Jew in Warsaw. That he and his immediate family managed to step out of the city two years later and head east just as the Germans were stepping in from the west was due to some foresight and a great deal of luck. The rest of his extended clan was not so fortunate; dozens of aunts, uncles, and cousins died anonymously in the death camps.
The next time my father saw Warsaw was about 60 years later. He had no memory of the city – not that it would have mattered, for it had been completely destroyed during the war and rebuilt afterwards. One of its grand new buildings was the Palace of Culture and Science, erected in the 1950s as a "gift" from the Soviet Union. It was essentially a Stalinist showpiece, an unwelcome symbol of domination by a historical enemy, but it still remains towering above the city as its tallest building.
I would not have recognized this location had it not been for the Palace of Culture and Science. The first thing I noted in the photo was the stately, classical building – Europe, right? But what about all that graffiti? Someplace where a little urban grime goes unnoticed even on beautiful buildings – OK, Eastern Europe. And I would never have tried harder had I not spotted the clock face and spire jutting above the building in the foreground.
I have not been to Warsaw since 2001. But this is why a little bit of intuition sometimes can go a long way. I wonder how many other successful VFYW contestants can credit a tiny spark of recognition or intuition for a correct identification. That spire, for whatever reason, gnawed at my memory for a moment until Warsaw popped into my head. A photo online confirmed that it was the Palace of Culture and Science. I continued searching until I discovered that the tower in the distance to the right is the Warsaw InterContinental hotel. Based on the location of these two buildings in the photo and the perspective, I estimated that the location in question had to be mostly east of the Palace and a bit north, maybe half a mile to a mile away. And so it is.
This photo is taken from the third floor of the Polish Institute of International Affairs, which sits directly next to the present headquarters of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. I say current because until this year, the museum was only an idea. It will officially open sometime in the coming months in a new building located where the former Jewish ghetto stood, maybe not far from where my father was born.
Lastly, a message to an 87-year-old Polish reader recovering from surgery but who managed to help out with the contest this week: Szybkiego powrotu do zdrowia!
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You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts. Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@gmail.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.
A reader writes:
These contests are getting way too easy. I mean, come on: a flat, featureless landscape with nondescript trees and buildings on an overcast day? And just in case there's anyone who could possibly be confused, the three construction cranes are a dead giveaway. Maybe I'll switch to Angry Birds if this is the best you can come up with.
Another writes:
Not many clues! It does seem to be a semi-arid region with no surrounding mountains and with some building activity going on (as indicated by the construction cranes). This matches the surroundings of Homs, Syria. Since the Baba Amr district has been in the news recently, I am going to guess that location. Since Google Maps indicates there are some relatively open spaces nearby, I am going to guess that it was taken from from a third-story window in the Institute of Computer Technologies building (though I cannot find the Institute's website to confirm this guess … )
Another:
I am a longtime lurker around these parts, but it looks to me like a North Dakota oil boomtown – I'll go with Tioga. Dusty environment, dormitory-like structures (which are being built en masse to house the new oil workers), and what appear to be oil rigs. Unfortunately, I've got nothing else to go on, but I thought I would take my first crack at VFYW. Thanks!
Another:
Nearly as hard as that parody VFYW contest. When I see cranes I usually guess China and have a 66.7% chance of being in the right country. But this feels like a stateside land grant university to me. Some trees in the background seem to have their leaves while the (oaks?) in the foreground have lost theirs. This first lead me to think Oregon State in Corvallis, where the grey skies would not be out of place. But that campus has more red brick than concrete or yellow brick, plus the terrain seems too flat. Maybe Colorado State in Fort Collins as long as the view is facing east – how about from the Forestry building out toward the Oval?
Another:
My first thought is Tuscaloosa, Alabama, looking eastward toward the University of Alabama campus. That looks like Bryant-Denny Stadium on the horizon, with Tutwiler Hall immediately to its right. The problem is that those trees in the foreground should be greener at this time of year, but that must be the kind of weather they had yesterday and there should be a good bit of construction going on after last spring's tornado there.
Another:
This has to be the hardest contest ever.
Unless the trees beneath the window are some rare place-specific variety, there is absolutely no way you can get this. A few nondescript low-rise buildings. Three cranes and a cloudy sky. It could be anywhere. I'll be very impressed by the person who correctly identifies this one!
Another:
I'm guessing the latest one is from Madison, WI. I went to the University of Wisconsin, which currently has a number of construction projects underway. Although Madison has one of the most unique campuses in the states by virtue of being located on an isthmus, there are a number of buildings in the brutalist fashion as seen in the picture.
Another guesses Springfield, Massachusetts:
First, it's winter or should be winter in this photo. I know deciduous trees when I see them. The appearance of deciduous trees rules out nearly half of the world. Like there are deciduous trees in Africa. Second, I notice the appearance of lichen on those trees. Because lichen only occurs in environments with abundant clean air, this rules out anywhere in China or Texas. Third, the window through which we peer looks not just clean but also from a renovated mill. Again, clear glass and old mills, removes all of Africa, China, South America, the American South, and Texas.
It's Texas. Another:
The other day, Thursday, if memory serves, we had a sky like that here in north Texas. The trees are the right sort of height. You can see buildings very much like these just east of SH121 not too far north of DFW but not as far north as Copell. There is also some construction going on down that way, not just at the highway interchange before the split where 121 divides between DFW and Fort Worth, but north and east of there. So therefore: Grapevine.
Another Texas guess:
We have no idea where this window is. But we did learn a lot about cranes, since it was the only clue we could think to follow up on. The visible cranes are likely Terex Peiner Hammerhead tower cranes, and if I had to guess, model SK415s. Based on the coloring, we think they're owned by Maxim Crane Works. Unfortunately, Maxim has over 100 such cranes all over the USA. There is lots of press on their use to build a hospital expansion in Cincinnati, but the leaves on the trees say this photo is not that far north. And so, we guess a random city in the southern-half of the United States, Fort Worth.
Another:
This one is killing me. Those are Texas live oaks just putting on their spring foliage, those are Texas clouds, and those might even be Texas cranes. And I have seen this type of ugly but functional 1960s institutional buildings all my life (most of it lived in Texas). But I just can’t quite place this one. I know I will kick myself when the secret is revealed. My best guess is some institution somewhere near San Antonio.
Close. Another:
The red brick and architecture of the visible building really suggest a government structure or something on the UT Campus. Plus the live oaks really suggest Texas to me. I'm going to guess it's somewhere on the University of Texas campus.
Wrong university but closer. Another:
I am probably wrong, but it sure looks like this was taken from somewhere in central Texas (the scraggly-looking live oaks in the foreground), perhaps, judging from the neo-Brutalist architecture, on the campus of what is now known as Texas State University in San Marcos (which has a few new buildings under construction. No time for Googling, and I've won before; I'll just be happy if I'm close.
Quite close. This reader nails it:
I never thought I would come close on a VFYW contest, but I actually recognized this one. Live oaks, ugly sandstone colored brick, Soviet-era style architecture; it must be the place I spent five miserable years for graduate school: the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. Given the multi-pane window, it must be from one of the older buildings on campus, plus the fact that you can see Kyle Field in the upper right pane means it's taken from one of the upper stories of the Jack Williams Administration building.
About a dozen readers correctly answered College Station. Another:
You actually had this view as a daily view about a month ago! It was taken from a northwest facing window of the YMCA Building. The cranes in the distance are new dormitories going up. Obscured by the trees in the lower left is All Faiths Chapel where my parents were married … Gig'em Ags!
We were surprised that only a few readers noticed that we published that similar VFYW recently – a hidden clue for a tough contest. Another reader has a different vantage point:
A more pinpoint location is the 3rd floor of the YMCA Building looking northwest over our currently under-construction dorms (that building has had a rough Spring). Here's my view of the same space:
If my answer is incorrect let me borrow a now infamous phrase from a "former student" of Texas A&M, current Texas Governor Rick Perry: "Oops".
Another:
Whoop! As an Aggie alum (class of '96), I knew this one the moment I saw it. It's looking northwest out of a top-floor window of the YMCA building on the Fightin' Texas Aggie campus. The building in the foreground is the Beutel Health Center, where I was given penicillin in September of '92, after quickly succumbing to one of the bugs that went around my dorm in the first month of my freshman semester. The next building top center is Lechner Hall, a dorm that back in those days was use to house recipients of academic scholarships, and I briefly dated girl in Haas Hall, which is to the left and a bit behind Lechner. My dorm, Moses Hall (home of the Red Ass Bastards) is just out of view to the left.
On a trip back to campus last fall, I found that they had torn down several of the old dorms north of Moses, preparing to build something new. That's what the cranes in the background are for, which puts the date to something fairly recent. See the attached image for my analysis of the window the sender is looking out of:
The reader with the most accurate answer:
This is a picture of my daughter's future home! She will be entering Texas A&M next fall, and the buildings in the top window panes are McFadden and Lechner residence halls, where she and the other freshman honors students will live. She hopes to be a veterinarian some day, and Texas A&M is the only college of veterinary medicine in the state of Texas. It is also one of the largest in the country, training about 8% of all of the vets in the United States!
This picture is taken from the YMCA building, and overlooks Beutel Health Center in the foreground. The cranes in the background are in the Northside Residence Hall construction zone. It must have been taken from the third floor on the northwest side of the building. I am going to guess it was taken from the leftmost window in the front group of three as shown here:
We ran this image by the submitter of the window view and she confirms that the floor is correct but that the exact window is actually the middle one – but close enough for victory, and a book. More details:
I am delighted that you chose the window from my window for this week's contest! I don't expect that there will be many correct guesses, as the picture has few clues (if any) and is relatively non-descript. I am looking forward to reading what people guess, though!
In any case, I thought that I would provide a bit of detail about the photo, in case you need to adjudicate a winner. The view is from office 402 C in the YMCA Building on the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station, TX. This building is home to A&M's Department of Philosophy, and some student learning services. The view is facing northwest, and while there are many distinctive features of our campus that Aggies would recognize, there is nothing of note in this photo. But I have a nice sized office and a big window, so I can't complain!
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