Category: Contest

by Chas Danner

Only one reader correctly guessed this week’s view:

Way too easy. Come on, at least make us work for it. Its’s clearly New York City, NY, USA.

Another is packing his bags:

I don’t care where it is, but I could live there!

Another elaborates:

If every human being could spend two weeks annually at such a place, workplace violence and domestic abuse would disappear.

A confident guess:

Obviously, this is a rare, full daylight view of Lamplight Village, so often painted by Thomas Kinkade, The Painter of Light:

And available for just three installments of $16.66 (that includes a free, light-painting Thomas Kinkade action figure). Another has a less sentimental guess:

Vaduz, Liechtenstein. Because of reasons.

Or perhaps the UK?

This is a straight-up stumper. No (readable) signs, no cars, no people. no livestock. Six buildings partially visible, and a paved road running through, in some very lovely mountains. Let’s start with the mountains: those could be the Rockies (or other range in western North America), the Alps, the Andes, or somewhere odd like Japan or New Zealand. The sun looks to be more or less directly overhead, so let’s eliminate the southern hemisphere.

My first impulse was Switzerland, but the houses don’t look typically Swiss. My next impulse was Scotland. That feels closer.

If anyone is going to actually decode this (i.e., if anyone is going to get it without having been here on vacation and recognizing it) my guess is that they are going to figure out what is up with that yellow box on the side of the building in the foreground that looks like a hand soap dispenser. I am not going to be that person.

So for the sake of keeping my resolution and my sanity I’m going to throw a virtual dart at a map of the Scottish Highlands and say… Fort Augustus, Scotland. Hoping for proximity…

Another:

I’m really looking forward to finding out how the winner deduced this, because I haven’t a clue. We have that funny yellow box on the side of the foreground building, but after much googling I still have no idea what it is. Perhaps the style of the sign on the road evokes something for someone, but not for me. Perhaps the combination of the old stone construction, the slate roofs, the solid shutters, and the mountainous setting all add together in a unique way for someone out there, but not for me. Or perhaps the trees make it clear. The best I can get is somewhere in Europe.

Well you’re right about Europe. Another:

I think those who wanted a difficult contest got there wish. Just because I want to make a guess, I’m saying Rottenturm, Switzerland because it looks like it could be somewhere in Europe and that’s where my grandmother was born and lived until she was eighteen and fled Europe for the United States. The look of the buildings and the slopes behind them are how I imagine that town must look.

This reader better watch out for Uncle Sam:

That is almost certainly where I do my secret banking in Switzerland. I’m not allowed to be more specific.

Another Dish-informed contestant gets closer:

La Mare-aux-Geais, France. Looks like a hameau. Now where did I recently read the word hameau? Oh yes, in the Dish post about La Mort Aux Juifs. The description of the hameau in that post is two houses and one farm. So that is my guess.

This reader gets really close:

The landscape combined with the slate roof, stone buildings, and dormer windows is a good fit for the Pyrenees.  But this is a really tough one to narrow down further.  There are a million little towns and villages in the French and Spanish Pyrenees, and there’s not really a good way to explore them all.  I’ve officially given up and will randomly pick the French town of Fos.  I’m anxious to see how the winner(s) this week will identify the exact spot.  Grit, determination, and many hours of browsing google earth?  ESP?  What will the secret be?

The Pyrenees it is, and the French side was the most popular incorrect guess this week. This reader gets in the right country, only the wrong part of that country:

I know this is probably somewhere in southern Germany/the Alps but those slate-shingled roofs, the mountains, and the green foliage remind me of the tiny sub-region of “O Bierzo,” the far western corner of the province of León in Spain, just east of the region of Galicia (in fact, they speak the Galician language there, too). Slate-shingled roofs are very common in O Bierzo as well as in neighboring Lugo province, but clay shingles are the norm nearly everywhere else in the country.

Alas, the only players to nail this week’s exact town in Spain were previous winners. For instance, a neuroscientist:

This one was fun. At first the general alpine-ness suggested the Alps, but poking around there didn’t turn up the right mix of architectural features. Cycling fans know that if it’s not the Alps then it’s the Pyrenees, so off to the Franco-Spanish border. The ridgeline matched one outside Vielha, Spain, just a stone’s throw from the French border and familiar to obsessive cycling fans who remember it as the teams’ home base before last Tour de France stage 16.

From there, it was a process of roof-matching in Street View to ID the right structure among so many pretty buildings. The rushing stream in the picture is a great hint. Based on sight-lines, I think the window must be the southern-most one on the top floor at 52 Carrèr Major:

Amazing. Contest #164 was from another part of the Spanish Pyrenees as well. And here’s the winner of Contest #166:

This was the most difficult contest in quite a while.

This week we are in the Spanish Pyrenees in the town of Vielha. For the building appears to be named Nere and the closest address on I could find is 54 Carrèr Major, 25530 Vielha, Lleida, Spain.

On the second floor of the building, there are two large windows that open onto small balconies. I believe the contest window is the one on the left when facing the building (i.e. the one further south). The window is in the box in the attached picture. I also attach one street view picture showing a snowy version of the same scene, but just from one floor down. And for good measure attached is a third picture taken from the parallel street across the Arriu Nere showing the building with the contest window and two of the buildings in the contest picture.

Rest assured, the more the difficult the contest, the happier Grand-Champ-Chini gets:

Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about. After a tough few days I needed a good view to hunt and this one made up beautifully for Dish Editor Chris Bodenner’s maddening eephus pitch from last week.

The lack of landmarks means that we’ve got a classic “hard” view on our hands, but its proximity to Spain’s biggest ski resort makes me think that there’ll still be a decent number of responses. Eight correct answers, perhaps?

This week’s view comes from Vielha, Spain in the Val D’Aran just a few miles south of the French border. The picture was taken from a sliding living room door on the second physical floor of the Casa Mijaran rental apartments (most likely Mijaran #1) located at 54-52 Carrer Major and looks east-north-east along a heading of 71.37 degrees over the banks of the River Nere, a tributary of the Garonne River. I’ve also attached a picture from the interior showing the likely spot where your viewer was standing.

Lest any regular players get too intimidated, this week’s winner was off by only 7.1km:

A really difficult one this week! I am pretty certain it is on the Pyrenees, given the terrain and the architecture, but finding the exact mountain village with the scant clues present in the picture is beyond me. Just for fun I am going to guess Arties, Spain, though I’d be flabbergasted if I turn out to be right.

Flabbergast away. Nice job.

This week’s view actually came from friend-of-the-Dish Jonathan Cohn:

It’s from an apartment in Vielha, Spain, where we spent a week in July. Vielha is in the Pyrenees in Catalonia and near the French border.

The photo will be tough, I think, but there are mountains and a bell tower in the center of town which are both visible in the shot. There’s also a creek/small river in one of them. That could help too.

We’ll do an easier view for next week. If you’d like to try and find out where, we’ll see you on Saturday.

(Archive: Text|Gallery)

by Chris Bodenner

After more than four years running the VFYW Contest (a feature increasingly innovated by Chas, aka Special Teams), I thought I would finally throw my own view into the ring. A reader writes:

Somewhere in Barcelona. I had a very similar view from a hotel there once.

Another:

Paraguay, because of “Chacarita” on the bus. (Chacarita is a barrio, or neighborhood, in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay.)

Another asks, “How about Chacarita, Costa Rica?” Another stands by his principles:

SW Rome. I don’t believe in researching these!

Another notices a key detail:

Winter clothing and the portable propane patio heater tell us we are looking at the Southern Hemisphere.

Another gets the right city:

Unless I’m missing something, this one had a surprisingly HUGE giveaway: the graphics on the bus – Chacaritas – clearly place the photo in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I’m putting it in the Colegiales neighborhood on Calle Maure, but being an underachiever with three kids in tow to boot, I’ll leave it to another Dishhead to take this one home!

Another shares a great memento:

A few years ago, my family went on a vacation to celebrate my dad’s 60th birthday in Buenos Aires, the location of this week’s VFYW.  This photo transported me back on Sunday morning when I saw it, with its architecture, foliage and of course, the bus. While there, one souvenir I purchased was a small coffee table book, El Libro de los Colectivos, a book celebrating the unique styles and culture of the city’s buses:

The colectivo 39, without a doubt, is the major clue in his week’s photo (although according to the book, number 39 seems have have changed its look since this book came out).  Looks like it used to have a red and black color scheme, different than today’s mud and cola colors.  Both still have gold accents.

Another goes for the right neighborhood:

After hoping that someday there might be a VFYW pic with a clue so obvious that it might as well have been written on the broad side of a bus, there it was, right in front of me. But I’m still uncertain. I’ll go with the neighborhood of Chacarita in Buenos Aires, Argentina. More specifically, a view from the Hotel Torre at the corner of Avenues Corrientes and Olleros.  Late afternoon Southern Hemisphere fall shadows agree with that intersection’s orientation,  but there is still something not quite right with the hotel’s location at that corner.  But I will stand firmly in quicksand with my guess.

Another adds, “The famous Chacarita Cemetery is the largest cemetery in Argentina with many notable interments.” Another reader:

Gut feeling says “Buenos Aires.” I was there a couple of years ago and this looks like the neighborhoods I walked through.  I won’t go for the intersection (let alone the exact window), but let’s say it’s in the Recoleta neighborhood, near the cemetery where Eva Peron is entombed.

Another notices a detail no one else did:

The jacaranda trees and architecture told me it was Buenos Aires, probably the Palermo neighborhood, before I even tracked down the bus that features so prominently in the photo.

Palermo it is. Another reader:

Welp, everyone is going to get this week’s window location, I think.  Googling “chacarita 39” brings up this route map for the bus in the picture as the very first hit:

If I were motivated to find the exact window, I’d just take that map and – noting that the bus is turning right – find all the right turns on the route and zoom in on them. But I’m not, because thinking of Buenos Aires reminds me of my favorite author, the master Jorge Luis Borges (who was born there), and I find a parallel between the VFYW contest and his tale of the Zahir: that thing that possesses the power to induce an overwhelming obsession in those who see it, slowly consuming them until they lose all sense of reality, until finally “(they) will have to be fed and dressed, (they) will not know whether it is morning or night, (they) will not know who (they were).”

Many are the Saturdays that I have spent long hours seeking out the location of a fascinating View window. Is it possible that this contest has become my Zahir?

Another moves along:

If you think I’m going to follow the 39 Chacarita bus line through it’s entire route looking for this corner, you’re nuts.

Another gives it a shot:

I’m not super familiar with Buenos Aires, but based on the fact that the bus is turning right and on the tree-lined street, I’m guessing Avenida Santa Fe in the (trendy!) Palermo district, taken at the intersection of Santa Fe and Vidt.  From a 5th-floor window in the building on the northeast side of the street.

Another tried another tool:

So, I’ve chased every turn the #39 Chacarita bus makes as it winds through the streets of Buenos Aires and failed miserably. Even tried searching through the photos of each hotel listed on the route in the Time Out guide. I’m exhausted and my head hurts!

Chas helped me plot many of the other guesses:

Another scratches his head:

I thought the geometry of this intersection was peculiar. There were three vehicles in motion at this intersection. The photo shows that the vehicles are traveling on a one way street. The vehicle to the right (in the photo – it is left in relation to the other vehicles in the real world) is making a left-hand turn, while the bus and the car next to it are going straight through the intersection. To the left are parked cars facing the opposite direction from the car turning left, which indicates that this street might be two ways.

Another nails the right intersection:

First-time entrant, long time astonished observer here.  I think this was taken from the fifth-floor window (fourth-floor in European counting, i.e. ground+4) of the building on the corner of Mario Bravo and Soler in Buenos Aires (3600 Soler? Can’t figure out an exact address), on the five-way intersection of Soler, Honduras, Mario Bravo, and Coronel Diaz.

Another provides a visual of the five-way:

The #39 bus to Chacarita!  Google search for “Chacarita” led me to Buenos Aires, and from there I found a detailed route map of the #39.  So I just have to use Street View to check out all the intersections on the route where the #39 bus turns, right?  Wrong – there’s no Street View for Buenos Aires yet. But Google Earth is a good enough substitute, and it led me to this intersection:

The photo looks like it was taken from the triangular building on the south side of Soler, and the photo is catching the bus turning onto Soler from Av Coronel Diaz. I couldn’t find the address for the building where the photo was taken, so I assume it’s residential – I’m guessing the window is on the 6th floor of the building.

Another has a great photo of that triangular building:

My city! Finally! At first sight, it looked like the snobbish Palermo neighborhood. With the 39 line bus clue, and the street that changes its direction (Soler Street), it was a piece of cake to deduce the exact corner. I know this city better than my palm. It’s a similar size to NYC, and it does have a somewhat similar vibe, but it has fewer green spaces (in that sense, it is the worst in Latin America) and a worse public transport system. It’s a worse city than New York, but I love it.

This was the building in which the picture was taken, and I’m guessing the fifth floor:

Another walks us through:

The two-steps-forward-and-one-step-back of this week’s contest:

1. Easily spot Chacarita 39 on bus in picture… Yay!

2. Note that this damn bus line in Buenos Aires runs through pretty big portion of the city… Grrr

3. Easily find a block-by-block bus route on a satellite image-enabled map… Yay!

4. Waste precious time trying to find a spot on the route where the bus turns sharply right… Grr

5. Using both the bus line website and Googlemaps, locate the slight turn (a right turn!) on from Avenida Coronel Diaz, across Soler, onto Honduras that appears to fit the bill… Yay!

6. Realize that Google Streetview is not avialable in Buenos Aires… WTF?!

My best guess is that the picture was taken from an apartment building with the address “De la Carcova 3501-3599” in the Palermo section of Buenos Aires. The view looks due north from the fifth floor across Soler towards Avenida Coronel Diaz.

One of the best visual entries:

Another didn’t get that far:

Looks like a South American city. Somewhere I’ve been. Best guess: Buenos Aires. It may be winter there, but it’s a gorgeous summer day here, so I’m done. (I’ll leave finding the details and winning the book to someone else.) Gonna go out and enjoy myself in Central Park, in that wonderful city that you hate so much and that apparently makes so many people so miserable.

Rest assured there won’t be any gratuitous NYC bashing while Andrew is away this month. And by the way, the winters down in Buenos Aires are pretty gorgeous too; 65-degree sunny days are common. How a reader describes it:

It’s a strange place: Warm as hell but resembling a German city at times.

Another:

It turns out it’s actually more frustrating when you know the city! I have spent a lot time in Buenos Aires so I knew immediately. I suspect I’ve even taken the Line 39 Chacarita Bus. If I were a more patient individual I could trace the route of the bus but I’m not that patient. Anyway, I’m guessing somewhere in the Palermo neighborhood. I await the efforts of a more obsessive person to identify the exact corner, and window.

Another obsessive:

Another notes:

Riding those buses years ago was one of my highlights of living there. Drivers would “drive,” shift gears, smoke, talk to their girlfriends (seated behind or next to them), give tickets, make change, yell at passengers, debate passengers, and, usually, avoid minor fender benders with other vehicles and pedestrians.

Another also knows the area:

The #39 bus to Chacarita (a fabulous neighborhood where many gays have moved since the gentrification of Palermo) veers right at this intersection onto Calle Honduras. Hope I’m right!  And I hope the “rational default” doesn’t further destabilize an already highly volatile economic / employment situation in Argentina.

Another has fond memories of the city:

I spent six months studying in Buenos Aires while I was in college and lived in the Palermo neighborhood with a lovely old couple, and I woke up to a similar more often than not. After I got married last year, I traveled there on my honeymoon where I tried to relive some of the magic of that city. Now, the number 39 route (which I did ride on occasion) goes through several neighborhoods, but the feeling on the street reminds me of Palermo. Thanks for reminding me once again of this great place.

Another:

It’s a tremendous coincidence that you selected this precise location, since it not only inspired great nostalgia in me as a former resident of Buenos Aires, but in fact the lower-right corner of the photo contains a view of Café Nostalgia, located at the corner of Av. Coronel Díaz and Soler in the neighborhood of Palermo.

My nostalgia was further enhanced by the fact that I used to live about ten blocks away, on the border of Palermo and Recoleta, and that I used to ride that very bus (the 39 Line to Chacarita) with great frequency while attending classes in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires.

Great choice – thanks for the wonderful memory!

Another adds, “Café-Bar Nostalgia is described here as ‘a space in which you can revel in the antiquated whilst observing the modern,’ complete with a crowd-pleasing ‘barrelful of monkey nuts’ – yum!”  … meaning a barrel of peanuts from which they serve you a bowl at your table. Another reader:

The neighborhood sounds interesting and perhaps a bit ritzy. A review of the restaurant across the street gushes about the $35-$40 main courses and the excellent people watching.

That review was written in January 2010, and prices at Cafe Nostalgia are actually much lower now. I’ve had many amazing steak dinners there with another person, sharing a bottle of wine, and I’ve rarely spent more than $50 USD. Update from a reader:

By the way, if you want a fancy (somewhat expensive by BA standards) and amazing meal, try Paraje Arevalo.  We went late last year and loved it.

Just the kind of recommendation I was hoping to get by posting my view this week. And I’m finally getting a two-week vacation this month, after many years without a break from the Dish longer than a week, so keep the recommendations coming! My favorite entry this week:

I recognized Bs As right away – same as I did last time you had this city: there’s something so distinct of its aesthetic. I used to to live there back in ’09-’10. I googled the bus line and that confirmed it (as recently as 2010 there was no website like that and you had to carry around a city-issued byzantine pocket-guide). Out of the path on that route it felt like the neighborhood of Almagro to me.

I started looking along “Honduras” and when I cam across the corner of Colonel Diaz I saw “Cafe Nostalgia” pop up. Back in Bs As I worked part-time as a photographer for The Argentina Independent, a small English language newspaper. I’d photographed Cafe Nostalgia for them as part of a project on the then-54 Bares Notables (bars and cafes with a sort of historical landmark status from the city). Two of my photos [seen above and below] still come up as some of the first google image results for “Cafe Nostalgia.”

I went back and looked through the rest of that roll (all film) and even though there wasn’t any smoking gun pic, I do think that that green awning in the bottom right is Cafe Nostalgia. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking for this whole coincidence to be the case, but I’ll make my guess for that corner: Universidad de Palermo – Ingenieria, Mario Bravo 1300, Almagro, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Let’s say 4th floor.

Truly an amazing coincidence that the photographer is a Dish reader, since his photos were widely cited by other players this week. Another:

So easy!!! Since this is my hometown :)  The giveaway was the bus. The “39”. Anybody who has ever visited BA knows that the city is crowded with buses everywhere, each with their different numbers and their distinctive colors. The 39 passes by my old school (University of Buenos Aires) and of course I took it many times to go places in the city. The “Chacarita” written in the top of the bus signifies the last stop, one of the biggest cemeteries in the city. So I’m guessing that you will get tons of correct answers this week. I can’t give you the exact window but it doesn’t matter, it was definitely nice to see my city in the contest this week, I really miss it. “Mi Buenos Aires querido”.

Another also reflects:

Identifying the city was easy.  I went on holiday to Buenos Aires with friends in 2008, and I snapped a street scene in the containing buses with similar numbering, attached here, which helped me identify this photo location.  The distinctive multi-story European architecture and signs in Castilian Spanish were also good clues.

Another wants to go:

I came across the El Ateneo book store while googling along the route 39 bus line and then stopped searching as I didn’t want it to be anyplace else. Beautiful. Thanks for adding another location to the bucket list!

Another goes for the right window:

More specifically, it’s the building located at -34.594237, -58.414353.  The view is looking roughly due north (Chini will probably tell you it’s looking N at 2.278 degrees or some shit).  And I’m guessing the window is on the sixth floor, maybe the seventh.  No idea what the room number is.  The building is located in the triangle between Mario Bravo, Soler and De la Carcova streets.  It took me about 20 minutes to find the building.  Then I spent the next three hours trying to figure out something about the building.  Nada.  I’m guessing it’s an apartment building since there seems to be a bunch of rentals nearby.  You can always check out the nearby Lovers and Fuckers, if you’re in the neighborhood.

After having wasted more than a few Saturday afternoons trying to figure out the VFYW contest, I’ve now decided that if I can’t figure out a lead within 1-2 minutes, then I have to get on my life.  Sometimes I’ve been able to get the city, but not the building.  Other times, I have a gut feeling that I’ve been to the town or city in the picture, but can’t quite figure it out.  I nailed #157, but so did everybody else.  #177 was especially frustrating since it looked so familiar, I’d recently been on vacation there and had gone to college nearby.

When I looked at this VFYW pic, my immediate reaction was “WTF?”, like usual.  But then I noticed the bus and realized that it offered a ton of clues.  Sure enough, it lead me to this building.

(The above image is actually from a different reader.) Another suspects that “Doug Chini is fuming with boredom.” Let’s see:

To steal a line from Whittier, “it might have been.” If your viewer had waited a few seconds longer to take this week’s image just finding the right city would have been a battle, much less the exact spot. But they didn’t, and that #39 bus passing through center frame means that the Dish staff is gonna be buried under a landslide of responses.

This week’s view comes from Buenos Aires, Argentina. The picture was taken from roughly the fifth floor of a building on the 3500 block of Esquinas Soler and looks almost due north along a heading of 348.3 degrees. Bird’s eye and overhead views are attached along with a shot of the video game store just below your viewer’s window:

Another great entry:

This one gave my roommate and me a good, solid two hours of bonding time. You usually don’t give as many hints as you did here! A full bus number and name, that’s something. He’s been to Argentina, so he noticed the architecture right away, too. From there, it was scouring the bus line for an intersection where the 39 takes a right from a one-way street onto a two-way street. It’s where Av Coronel Diaz meets Soler and Honduras here. The 3500 block of Soler. We haven’t had this much fun together since we used to smoke pot and play frisbee in the park, thank you!

About 95% of the contestants this week correctly answered Buenos Aires, and dozens guessed the right floor in the triangle building at 3594 Soler, where I’m living for two months while Dishing full-time. So picking a winner was tough this week. But the prize goes to one of our favorite new contestants this year, better known as the GIF guy, for his inimitable entry:

The GIF guy, like Chini, has become such a great staple of the window contest that I asked permission to use his real name (since the Dish has a default anonymity policy of course). So welcome Blake Fall-Conroy to the pantheon of the VFYWC. Little surprise that Blake is an artist. Another creative reader wraps up this week’s contest with a short story:

The Chacarita 39

The late afternoon light was fading along Soler street, but enough of it filtered in to softly illuminate the small apartment with the dingy windows on the 6th floor. The low hum of traffic and street chatter drifted up from below and a few birds whistled loudly to each other.

Fernando’s eyes blinked open. What time was it?

He glanced over at the clock by the bed. The numbers were red and blurry, but he could make out 7:32. That couldn’t be right. Had he really slept for 3 hours?

He sat up panicked and looked down at his clothes. He was still wearing the wrinkled khakis and blue t-shirt that he had on in his engineering class that morning. The classes at Palermo were always long and boring and he was still hung over from Chasco’s party. He thought he could get a short nap in before meeting Maricela at the café across the street.

“I’ll give you one last chance,” she had said, sipping her Torrontés, her mischievous eyes sparkling from the blue party lights. “Meet me at six at Nostalgia and we’ll talk about it.” He had grinned stupidly at her as she left the party, and she had smiled back.

Fernando put his head in his hands. How had he let himself sleep through it? Would she still be there?

The answer came from the low rumble of a diesel bus overtaking the clatter of conversations from the café patio. He ran to the window and peered down at the intersection. Through the trees he could see the Chacarita 39 – Maricela’s bus – pulling out from in front of the café. He was too late. He grabbed his phone and snapped a picture as it turned onto Honduras street. The bus faded out of his view, taking Maricela across Buenos Aires and out of his life.

(Archive: Text|Gallery)

A reader starts us off with an enviable recent vacation:

Sao Paulo, Brazil. Was just there for the World Cup, and the view seems exactly like it – perhaps the green areas are part of Jardins or Jardim Paulista, and the high rises and skyscrapers are coming up near Avenida Paulista on the right of the photo. The building in the right side, middleground of the photo with two white towers, capped by black pyramids are definitely in Berrini district, or Morumbi just adjacent. I’m positive I was able to see them, while in Berrini district. I could be wrong, but this feels so like Sao Paulo.

Another:

This one was frustrating. It seemed simple but did not turn out to be (at least for me.)  I kept wanting it to be Kuala Lumpur, but couldn’t make it fit.  The language uses characters, so this should be somewhere in Asia.  There is the tower in the background, which looks somewhat like the tower in Macau.  It also looks a tiny bit like the one in Harbin, but this does not look like Harbin’s climate as I see some little palm trees down there.  The tower also resembles Kyoto’s, but the rest of the city doesn’t.  So I’m going with Macau.  No clue which window, and no more time to put into this.  Gah.

Another player is also wrong but more cheerful:

It’s Milan! I’ve never played before and I know that some clever Dishhead will produce coordinates, building, room, ambient temperature and a brief review of the grocery just around the corner, but for one fleeting moment I feel like I’m in this thing! Hope I’m not wrong for all the exuberance.

A veteran player of the contest shows off:

Just thought I would send a snap of my Dish t-shirt:

Read his winning entry here. And buy your own official Dish t-shirt or polo here. Back to the contest:

Mexico City, based only on the population density and pollution, plus that church center-right dwarfed by the high-rise apartment building.

Another nearly nails the right country:

This one turned out to be tougher than it looked at first. Everything is so new! It’s got to be one of China’s pop-up cities or a boom area near a more traditional one. Having been to Shanghai and Shenzhen, it looks a little like Shanghai and Shenzhen (but then again, what doesn’t). But it’s all a little subdued for China, and a little bit short on outdoor advertising. And maybe the roadways aren’t quite prominent enough.

Guessing Singapore. Google maps shows a bunch of different neighborhoods that look like they could be right, but as close as I can get is to guess somewhere in the Redhill/Bukit Merah neighborhood.

But most other players did correctly peg the People’s Republic:

The photo immediately says “China” – no where else has such a hodge-podge of skyscrapers. Problem is all the cities have the same hodge-podge. Looks more like a 2nd tier city, so will go for Chengdu.

The skyscrapers weren’t of much use, it seems:

I’m pretty sure we are in China for this week’s contest, given the amount of tall structures, architecture, and what my be Chinese script on some of the buildings.  I also think it is likely not a large city given the absence of super-tall skyscrapers (though perhaps it is just the view).  But otherwise, I am completely stumped.  Despite many hours spent on various skyscraper related forums, Wikipedia, and Google Maps, I can’t narrow things down any further.  I thought either the tall red roofed buildings or the white tower with a black core would be identifiable either through skyline images or the database at skyscraperpage.com, I’ve had no luck.  So I’m guessing Changsha, China.

The key challenge this week was clearly China itself:

How can a city be so simultaneously huge and utterly unfamiliar at the same time? Almost certainly by being in China. The sign on the red peaked roof near the upper left of the photo seems to bear this out. There are some palm trees amongst the foliage in the foreground. Lots of smog. Still, none of the images I look at of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, etc., seem to match up. Surely this is one of the biggest cities in the world, right? I’m guessing Shenzhen, because why the hell not? Though it feels absurd to be guessing with such a wide view.

There was another difficulty zooming in on China as well:

At +/- 5,000 feet the Google Earth images are crisp. Somewhere around 2,500 feet the images get milky & grainy, plus the buildings also flip orientation making it very hard to make out any details. Then at around 1,000 feet you can’t zoom in any further. This is much higher up than practically anywhere else. Google must have had a very interesting conversation with the Chinese Government.

Another contestant:

I’m pretty sure I’m wrong, but at least it’s one for the heat map! Qingdao, China – Badaguan neighborhood.

Added:

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Another reader nails down the city:

I have worked on this on and off for three days and I’m getting nowhere. Google is of no help to me.

• There are highrises on the left with red mansard roofs, one of which seems to contain Chinese characters. This could be a Chinese city. Or it could just be a city with a Chinese company. At least now I know what Palladian windows are.
• Evergreen coniferous trees – a northern climate?
• On the left edge, halfway down, there’s a partial logo; the name is blurry, but if it’s the western alphabet, it looks like it ends in -here or -hare or -nere or -nare. I did a slew of Google image searches for the logo and came up empty.
• In the midground, in front of some conifers, there are Western-looking buildings. One looks vaguely Dutch; is this a former Dutch colony in Asia? Or another city with a former Western presence like Shanghai? Or this is actually a Western city?
• There are a bunch of short buildings with red roofs.
• It looks vaguely like an ex-Soviet central Asian republic, one of the -stans. Or somewhere else in Asia. For all I know it could be western Canada. Or I could be completely wrong.

This seems like a place either you know or you don’t. But Shanghai has lots of 19th-century Western architecture, so I’m going with Shanghai.

Another reader:

Lots of newish and modern dense pack high rise residences. A few older ones with external air conditioner units predominant in Asia. Lots of red roofs and what looks like Chinese characters on the top of one building on the left side.  I have never been there but Shanghai is the best I can do with so few distinctive features. Smog is probably obscuring more detail.

My father was a career Army officer and served with the Joint US Military Advisory Group, China in Shanghai during 1948 until being evacuated to Tokyo in January 1949 as the Chinese Nationalist Army was collapsing in the face of Mao’s communist forces.

Another:

Oh, man. The poor folks trying to triangulate the actual window from this week’s view. I’m guessing a lot of people will tease out Shanghai, as it apparently boasts the world’s largest skyline, but that could also make finding the few distinctive buildings in the frame truly difficult. I think I got lucky by tracking it down inside of an hour – some weeks just go like that, and I was owed some luck after last week.

The view overlooks Jiaotong University. Props to this week’s submitter who was clearly angling for a contest view by narrowly clipping the nearby Grand Gate towers, just out of frame to the left and somewhat of a giveaway.

Another thinks he’s got the hotel:

I think this week’s content will prove to be a challenge. There are Chinese characters on one of the buildings. So, this must be an urban area in China. But which one? My initial guess is that this is Shanghai. But we see none of the iconic Shanghai skyscrapers. Making things more difficult, Shanghai does not have StreetView. On top of that, Google’s aerial view of Shanghai of a bit offset from the underlying base map. After looking around the city for a while, I happened on a rooftop that matched the building in the lower center of the view.

This week’s view comes from the Hengshan Picardie Hotel in Shanghai, China. The view is looking west-southwest towards Jiaotong University. Here is the layout of the view:

And here is my guess for the window:

Nope. But our favorite (and only) GIF-making player nails it:

Found it by Google Mapping the top twenty universities in China. Shanghai Jiaotong University was number seven. In trying to find a good image of the building, I discovered Baidu, China’s google. Their 3D maps look like Sim City! I’ll guess the 20th floor for no reason at all.

A veteran contestant has another angle:

This week’s picture was taken in Shanghai, China, from the west side of the Jian Gong Jin Jiang Hotel, in the Xuhui district; as for the floor, let’s say the 28th (the floor under the penthouse). Here is the same view, from a different angle:

This one was tough but doable; ideally suited to rebuild a little self-confidence in your contestants after last week’s débâcle, isn’t it?

Debacle? They can’t all be easy! A VFYW team:

At first we thought … awe crap, a massive skyline with millions of tall buildings and some vaguely Chinese looking writing.  There are over 100 cities in China with more than one million people! This is going to be impossible.  But the buildings in the foreground had a vaguely university-esque feel. From there, some Google searching and the university (and then the hotel) were identified. However, unfortunately China is not included in the Google Street View database. So we learned about and tinkered with map.qq.com which, while being a good substitute for Google Maps, unfortunately is only in Chinese. Anyways, after some fumbling through the map we identified the best possible street view of the Jiangong Jinjiang Hotel Shanghai.  Let’s say its the 23rd floor.

Chini had to take a deep breath this week:

I’ve been worried that we’d get one like this for a while. Normally when you narrow it down to a city finding the viewer’s location isn’t too much trouble. But with certain developing cities, like Sao Paulo for example, the sheer number of high-rises means that finding one specific building can take a lot of work. So when this one popped up I was really hoping that we were somewhere else in China; Wuhan, Tianjin, anywhere with a more modest skyline. But nope, we’re in the biggest one of them all.

This week’s view comes from the Xujiahui neighborhood of Shanghai, China. The picture was taken on roughly the 23rd story of the Jian Gong Jin Jiang Hotel and looks almost due west along a heading of 267.03 degrees over the roofs of the former French Concession.

Only one player, a former winner, correctly guesses the right floor of the hotel:

This week’s photo comes from the Jin Jiang Hotel in Xuhui district of Shanghai, China, located at 691 Jianguo West Rd.  I’ll guess the 27th floor.  It took a while to find the hotel, but this picture displaying some of the distinctive skyscrapers in the contest photo greatly helped find the location.

In the photo, we are looking west over the Xuhui campus of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The university’s original library building and more recent centennial monument are visible in the middle of the contest picture.  NBA great Yao Ming is currently enrolled at this prestigious university which boasts former leader Jiang Zemin as an alum.  The university excels in technical fields and, allegedly, offers its expertise to assist the People Liberation’s Army spy on U.S. and other western companies.

For some reason, the discussion of the university’s involvement in cyber spying disappeared from its wikipedia page a couple of months after newspapers reported on the matter.  It seems a user named Bwfrank removed the discussion from the page and abruptly stopped revising wikipedia pages.  Prior to that, Bwfrank focused on editing the university’s page, articles on the Chinese and US space programs, and Japanese anime.

This week’s winner, though he doesn’t name the hotel, IDs the building and was one floor off with a long record of correct guesses without a win:

The occasional bits of writing viewable on the buildings appeared Chinese to my untrained eye, so that was where the search began.  Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Beijing, Tianjin, even Hong Kong. After a lot of frustration I ended up looking around the Pacific Rim:  Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Hanoi, Ho-Chi-Minh City, Manila, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta.  At this point all I had really learned was that Southeast Asia has a crapload of tall buildings, and after a while they all start to look the same.

Fortunately my wife is more astute than I am and found a similar view from a hotel near Jiaotong University in Shanghai: the place I had searched first and long since given up on.  The lack of Google Street View makes it hard to be precise, but this was taken from around the 26th floor of a building across the street from the Hengshan Picardie Hotel.  It looks like an office building.  The view is looking west-by-southwest over the university campus.

It seemed at first like it should be an easy one, but not being able to read Chinese was (unsurprisingly) a big handicap when searching.  I’ll be curious to see how difficult other people found this.

Congrats! Details from the photo’s submitter:

The view is of French Concession West, Shanghai. Taken at 8am from room 82707 on the 27th floor of Jian Gong Jin Jiang Hotel.

I thought when I took this shot it would be a great VFYW contest: before seeing this view I don’t think I’d have even guessed the right continent, and I suspect there are plenty of people familiar with Shanghai who wouldn’t be able to place it either.

This was my first visit to Asia. I was a tourist in Shanghai for nine days, spending much of my time walking around and seeing the city up close. It’s a wonderful city and I can’t wait to go back. I live in New York, so being in a megacity wasn’t a novelty, and Shanghai’s culture and architecture are heavily European influenced, so I didn’t experience too much culture shock. What DID shock me, though, was the fact that I never once felt the slightest bit threatened, physically or materially (although I always take proper precautions against pickpocketing), even in the grittier parts of town. I don’t know if that’s peculiar to Shanghai or if it’s the same elsewhere in China, but I have never felt safer anywhere else in the world.

(Archive: Text|Gallery)

First up, a call to locate arms:

I’m addicted to your weekly window contest. It is challenging, fun, and a great distraction.  But there might be more practical uses for the skills involved in solving the contest.  Recently, several bloggers have been using a photo posted on Twitter to figure out where the BUK missile system that Ukraine’s Russian separatist rebels had misplaced has been traveling. KoreaDefense.com has this post explaining how it and other bloggers found the location.

Another reader turns to the difficulty of this week’s missile-less contest:

Earth has two hemispheres, and this view is clearly on one of them.  Seriously, the EU license plates (and I should know better than to get fixated on license plates) and French vehicles had me checking every remaining Western Hemisphere colonial enclave, before finally deciding that those white buildings = Portugal.  So Lisbon, and it’s wrong. When it turns out to be Morocco I’mma throw something.

Another aims south of the border:

Hoping proximity counts on this one. I cannot pinpoint the city, but it is very reminiscent of Playa del Carmen in Quintana Roo, Mexico.

Or farther south?

Quito, Ecuador. It looks like the old city, perhaps on or near Guayaquil.

Another must live in New York:

No idea, but it looks like you could eat off that street; it’s so clean!

Another:

Had to be in the south of France somewhere. I looked up the last few stages of the Tour de France and decided this must be Maubourguet, starting point for stage 19. But it could easily have been somewhere else in the south: Nice, or Cap d’Antibes, or something like that. Beautiful light.

Getting there. Another reader:

This is my very first entry for the VFYW contest. I saw English words, European traffic signs, and Mediterranean style roofing slate. I googled “English speaking Mediterranean countries” and came up with Gozo, Malta. Then I got lost in all the gorgeous photos of the land and art and couldn’t be bothered to track down where the photo was taken. I randomly chose Victoria because it’s in the center of the island and “Victoria Gozo Malta” sounds goofy when you say it out loud. I don’t know if I’m even close, but it was worth it for the photo tour alone.

The Mediterranean it is. Another reader nails the right country with this exhaustive entry:

Spain.

A more detailed response:

All I know for sure is, it’s one of the White Towns of Andalusia, Spain. Ronda seems as good a guess as any:

(1) Googled “Tourneo” (back of the white car/van): said it’s a Ford model used mainly in Europe.

(2) Looked up the formats of European license plates by country; the only match was Spain.

(3) Googled “Spain red tiled roofs” and found lots of stuff about the White Towns of Andalusia.

From there I was stuck. The sign in the foreground appears to be for a restaurant. It’s hard to tell what the second row of the sign says: begins with a C or G, and the third letter is probably Ñ. I went through an enormous list of restaurants in Andalusia on TripAdvisor, found some possibilities, but came up empty.

Andalusia was this week’s most popular incorrect guess:

EU license plates, looks to be on or near the Mediterranean, most likely in a country where the word for “restaurant” starts with “R-E-S-T”, which is basically all of them except Italy and Malta. The two readable license plates are in the four digit, three numeral format which is apparently unique to Spain.

I recently spent two lovely weeks in Barcelona, and only really ventured briefly out of the city to Girona and Figueres. This isn’t Barcelona (the sidewalks are too narrow, the streets too wide) but it could be one of the other two, or any of dozens of other small cities in Spain. But I’m actually inclined to say that this isn’t likely anywhere in Catalonia, because there are no Catalan flags to be seen, and I saw them EVERYWHERE when I was there.

Is this one of the famed “White Towns” of Andalusia? It sure looks like it. But which one? The fact that we have a fairly modern street (asphalt, not cobblestones, wide enough to park cars on both sides, and in a fairly grid-like configuration) may narrow it down a bit to the larger towns. And the convergence of opposing one-ways onto another street seems a pretty unusual configuration. That should be easy to spot … but it isn’t.

I’m liking Ubrique, for its size and layout, and the surrounding landscape looks right. But I can’t quite seem to nail this one down. Algodonales looks exactly right for the surrounding landscape, but again, I can’t seem to find the exact spot. Ditto Grazalema. And Prado del Rey. So, I’m going to go with my gut and stick with Ubrique.

No matter: browsing the White Towns on Street View was a great deal more enjoyable than looking at Sports Authorities in the Northeast! And I really need to get back to Spain.

Another is thinking the Spanish UK:

Spanish roofs + English stop sign + rocky escarpment = Gibraltar

Several readers were on the same track:

This one is driving me crazy! The truck in the foreground has Spanish plates but all the signs are in English. This makes me think the most obvious place would be Gibraltar. After rooting around in Google maps I found similar looking road signs, and the architecture seems like a fit, but I can’t for the life of me find a road that matches the one pictured. So I’m just going to have to say Gibraltar somewhere off of Main street. Although I’m sure I’m off by miles and that this is some obvious yet obscure region that several Dishheads will have vacationed. Tuesday can’t come fast enough!

The best incorrect entry we received this week:

Since today is national dance day in the US and I just this afternoon read that Father “Pepe” Jose Planas Moreno dances the sevillanas with his parishioners at his church in Campanilla in the Malaga district of Spain (seen below) – I’m going with that town. I wish I had time to delve more deeply into the search but will be seriously happy with myself if I’m this close to correct!

But this reader correctly identifies the type of Spanish land mass we’re looking for:

This week’s contest is massively frustrating, I’m haunted that I am missing some clear clue as to the location.  For a while I was stuck on the French Riviera, based on the white houses, red roofs, and appearance of the stop sign.  But I eventually started investigating the licenses plates and found that 4 digit/3 letter combination is unique to Spain.  But I couldn’t find anything else in the image to focus my search.

After looking at Pamplona (given the recent running of the bulls) and not finding any likely hits, I went further afield.  It appears that the Canary Islands are rife with one-way streets, occasionally have the word stop printed along crosswalks, has a predilection for green shutters, and has a terrain that may match the background.  But zooming around the islands in maps and street view hasn’t helped in isolating the location.  For some reason, I still feel strongly that the Canary Islands are it, so I’m guessing Santa Cruz de Tenerife, prepared to find out that I missed some obvious hint and that the location is actually on the mainland in Spain.

Yes, an island, but the Canaries are much too southwest. Another reader starts paddling us in the right direction:

I’m sure that there are contributors with hi-res screens who can read a phone number on what looks like a restaurant menu posted on the left, but all I have to go on is a Citroen sedan with a Euro-style plate.  Having Googled the number/letter sequence I’ve narrowed it down to Spain.  And with the Mediterranean look of the buildings I will make the wildly general guess of Ibiza, Spain.

Another gets closer still:

Last week’s Sherlock Holmes here. I’m going to play the game like I play GeoGuessr. In GeoGuessr you can, if you want, travel in the scene until you get to a place where there are clues to where the picture was taken. Instead, I usually try to go solely on gut, and whatever clues are in that frame and only in that frame.

With this VFYWC, I could spend hours googling “red tile roof” or try to find out what countries the Ford Tourneo is sold in. (If that’s even the right model of the mini-van in lower right of this week’s view.) I could invest the rest of this lovely Saturday searching for that white “R” on a red background to see if I can figure out if it is associated with a specific location.

Instead, I will once again go with my gut and say Mallorca, Spain. The cars look European – where else do they still sell Citroens, after all? The license plates are from the EU, I think. Plus, the scene has sort of an island feel to me. The red tile roofs feel Spanish. So, Mallorca.

I realize I’ll never win the book this way. But life is filled with disappointments.

A former winner almost got the right island but veered away at the last moment:

The house is a cheap-looking Spanish colonial with a Mediterranean color scheme. It appears to be an old farm (olives or wine ?) with several buildings that has been converted to apartments. I deduce that from the exterior wall connected them and the lack of a balcony on the building on the right. Also, there is an old stone horse trough that’s being used as a planter, but possible it was previously used for actual horses or as a water reservoir to clean the olives or grapes. So based on the horse trough I am narrowing my search to Spain, Portugal, or nearby islands, where horses were common. It looks like water in the background, so I am guessing that’s the ocean. I can’t imagine unpaved rundown apartments being that close to the ocean – at least not in mainland Spain or Portugal.

So how about Mallorca, or Minorca or one of the Balearic Islands? Possibly, but the color scheme doesn’t fit, and the those islands have mostly hipped roofs or higher pitched roofs and brighter colors.

However, Madeira does have some dull colored unpaved properties close to the water with hilly populated areas visible from a window – specifically Funchal, Madeira, Portugal. Wish I could make out the three numbers above the exterior doorway, but I only participate by iPhone with no access to photo enhancement. So my guess is Funchal.

In case there was ever any doubt, this week’s contest definitely proves why Chini is the VFYWC Grand Champion; he was the only player to get the correct town, let alone the exact location and window:

Aw man. Last week, when I had free time, the view was dead simple. Then this week we get a good one and I’m swamped getting ready for a two-day trip. So I had to be selective with my time, but what to focus on? The license plates were Spanish, clearly, but what next? The hills in the distance? The street markings, the architecture? It was almost too much to pick from, until I remembered a similar view from last summer. And then the path became clear …

This week’s view comes from the town of Es Mercadal on the island of Minorca, Spain. More precisely, the picture was taken from the front dining-room windows of the Restaurante Ca N’Aguadete and looks east northeast along a heading of 71.92 degrees towards El Toro, Minorca’s highest point.

Respect. This week’s winner was the only other reader to correctly identify the island:

Well, looks like for the second time in around a month living in Spain is having its advantages for this contest. The plates are Spanish. An eagle-eyed reader might be able to get the “E” as the country code on the plate, but the  1234 BCD format is how things have been done here since around 2000. This leads to the key clue to be found on the red Seat Ibiza. Prior to the current format there was a province code followed by 4 numbers and one or two letters. The Ibiza, quite aptly, has the code IB for “Islas Baleares” meaning we are looking at Menorca, Mallorca, Ibiza, or Formentera.

I have been driving myself crazy trying to figure out what town it could be, though. There is terrain, but not big enough mountains to be Western Mallorca. A particular style and abutting one way streets. Perhaps not even Balearic islands at all and the number plate is a red herring.

Either way, I just don’t have it this week, but I will go with my gut of the towns I looked at and say it’s Ferries, Menorca. Wish I could get an exact window, but not this time.

Close enough for a win. From the submitter:

I’m thrilled you chose the photo, my first submission. It’s from the second floor (European “1st”) of Restaurant Ca N’Aguedet, Carrer Lepanto 30, Es Mercadal. We shot the image from just to the right of the perpendicular “restaurant” sign that’s just visible in the picture.

We were in Menorca to celebrate a significant birthday of mine and because my husband had lived in the capital, Mahon, as a child. The restaurant, where we ate on a friend’s recommendation, is outstanding; its chef is dedicated to reviving and preserving traditional dishes of the island.

Thanks so much to the more than 70 readers who challenged themselves with this week’s contest, including many stumped veteran players. Here are everyone’s guesses on the OpenHeatMap, a cool app created by Dishhead Pete Warden:

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And for our newer players, don’t worry – the views are rarely this hard. Until Saturday!

But one last thing: the WaPo’s indispensable Christopher Ingraham wrote to the Dish over the weekend:

Inspired in part by the VFYW Contest, Wonkblog started running a contest of sorts whereby we present a map or other visual sans labels and ask readers to identify the data behind it. This week’s installment is here; here is last week‘s and the answer post. Thought you might enjoy.

Their latest contest closed yesterday and a new one will be up this Friday at noon. Check it out, VFYW nerds.

Previous VFYWC inspiration felt by the NYT and CNN.

(Archive: Text|Gallery)

Sherlock Holmes writes:

I’m gonna go with … America.

Another gets more specific:

Outskirts or small old town enveloped by Pittsburgh.

Another questions our motives:

Okay, you know you set me up. Sports Authority and Home Depot in the same center … should be easy, right? After screening out obvious “not possible” states: Utah, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, etc, I concentrated on all the others and did a Google Street view of each Sports Authority (they have fewer stores) and could not find one single match. I’m betting that was a red herring because you would never make it that easy …

Another also ended up empty-handed:

I thought I had a chance this week. Not to win, but at least, maybe, to get a location right and build up my credentials. I knew everyone would froth at the bit this week. So many clues! I started with the Sports Authority website and either cross referenced the location with Home Depot, or later, just started looking up the Sports Authority addresses on Google Maps. Do you know how often they are practically right next to each other like in your photo? Too many. Of course, none of those were the contest site. And FYI, other places that Sports Authority likes to cozy up next to are Best Buy and Target.

In the end, I failed. I couldn’t find it. Not even with all those clues. I must have missed one. The right one. But I bet you get a lot of right answers this week. Just not mine.

Another yawns:

The Home Depot, Sports Authority, Exxon? Really? Seldom have I been less inspired to make even my standard random guess.

But this one gets pretty close:

I was convinced this was in eastern Canada – an Esso gas station, deciduous trees, a one-way sign (so not Quebec). But a few searches convinced me Home Depots in Canada are built in sprawling power centres with no trees anywhere. And maybe that is an Exxon sign. I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere in the New England, an industrial-ish town, near a canal, in a place long-enough established to have an old stone church. Massachusetts.

It’s a beautiful day here in Montreal. I’m going for a walk.

Another nails the right city:

I was overwhelmed at first to find that there were 2,256 Home Depots in the United States, but relieved when Google revealed that there were only 450 Sports Authorities. Wheh. (Better than starting with the Exxon station on the corner – of which there are over 10,000 in the US – though I couldn’t find an official number for Exxon retail stores. It’s supposedly a practice ExxonMobil is abandoning in favor of supplying third-party owned/operated stations.)

Fortunately this looked like the Northeast U.S. and that narrowed it down pretty quick. A Google Maps search finally revealed this view to be in Waterbury, CT – specifically the Courtyard Waterbury Downtown – Marriott located off I-84.

Another shares the details of his search:

This looked like a scene from the northeastern United States, so I checked out Sports Authority stores in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, New York, then Virginia and North Carolina.  Somehow, I skipped Connecticut and I then went through a tour of Sports Authority stores in virtually all the states, including California, Texas, and far-flung Alaska and Hawaii.  When I finally decided to check Connecticut, my mind was in such a blur that I failed to properly recognize the location when it showed up.

What about the tower in the distance? I searched for “water towers” – that didn’t help.  The next day, I decided to stick to the Northeast, and search for built-up cities with hilly profiles, which finally brought me to Waterbury, CT. I checked for Home Depot and it looked exactly like the one in the photo, with the Garden Center on the right and across the parking lot was the Sports Authority.  When I noticed that there was even an Exxon nearby, I started to believe that I was in the right place.

The funky tower turned out to be part of a power plant: Waterbury Generation.

It was then easy enough to locate the location from which the photo was taken – Courtyard Waterbury Downtown Marriott – I believe it’s the 6th floor in the window indicated in the image (note: the bottom floor is hidden in the image).

 Another recognized the terrain:

I got this one on a gut feeling. I grew up in Connecticut, and the general vibe instantly said New England. I am also a child of the big box era and remember when people looked in awe at Home Depot, Sport’s Authority and the like; these are clearly aged. As a teenager, I also drove around the state constantly assisting my father, who through much of that time was a self-employed commercial real estate appraiser. The topography, highways, and industrial and cultural markers of the city suggested something like Waterbury. The Sports Authority gable, it turns out, is relatively distinct for its kind. With Google street view I almost was able to go into the back parking lot of the bank.

Another adds:

The landscape and the depressing green paint on the highway bridges instantly spoke to this Connecticut native and I knew that we were looking at the perpetually depressed Naugatuck River valley.

A few readers could barely make out a Connecticut license plate as well.

Below is this week’s OpenHeatMap of everyone’s guesses (zoom in by double-clicking an area of interest, or drag your cursor up and down the slide):

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Most players had a love/hate relationship with this week’s view:

For goodness’ sake, do you have any idea how many Sports Authority shops are located near Home Depots in the United States?  I didn’t until now.  I think it probably says something about the homogenization of American commerce to find so many big-box retailers in proximity to each other in so many places.

My method for this contest, after identifying the aforementioned superstores in the photo, was to use their own website store locators to narrow the list of states where they do business.  It turns out that Sports Authority does business in 45 states, so I only eliminated 10% of states.  The terrain is green and hilly, though, so that ruled out most of the dry western and flat plains states, and based on the architecture, I decided to focus on the northeastern United States.  I worked through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Massachusetts before I found Waterbury, Connecticut.  This view was taken from the Courtyard Waterbury Downtown at 63 Grand Street, looking south across Interstate 84 (Yankee Expressway) toward the shopping center.

Another:

Do you know how many of the 420 US Sports Authority stores share a common street with a Home Depot? I never did. Do now. 80. Fortunately this one was in Connecticut, not Wyoming. I might still be working at it.

 Another

I’ve spent almost 2 hours looking at The Sports Authority’s website looking for the right building. (By the way, the photo of Bemidji, Minnesota’s store is taken in the snow, which amuses me.) I’m sure the webmaster is shocked by the increase in web traffic today on their locations site as I’m probably not the only one doing this.

Another player brought in the geeks:

We did this the ridiculous way: my brother and my fiance, both programmers, wrote scripts to take all the locations of Home Depots and Sports Authorities in the US, convert them to GPS coordinates, and spit out a list of all the ones that were close together. Then I got really good at evaluating Home Depots on Google satellite images until, finally, we got to this one, which had all the right elements: a Home Depot with three pointy greenhouses and four round ones, a Sports Authority across the way (with 0.34km between them, if you’re wondering), an Exxon off to the side, and a bank with a drive-through across the highway. And, bonus, a hotel behind the bank with just the right line of sight!

Another used his gut:

Never been there but lived in Connecticut as a child (1965 – 1970) and recognized the state right away. I guess you just imprint on the place where you grew up and even 40 years later it’s just instant recognition, like an ancestral memory.

Another wonders, “Is there a more American scene in the entire world?”

A lovely tree-filled hillside is punctuated with big box stores and a two-tiered highway. The bland office building in the foreground houses an insurance company. All that’s missing is a McDonald’s and a Starbucks.

Waterbury has a significant history in brass production and watch manufacturing, but I hope you’ll use this contest to educate your readers about the unusual theme park that was built there in the 1950s. “Holy Land USA” was built as an hommage to Bethlehem and Jerusalem as they existed in the Biblical era. It’s complete with a replica of the Garden of Eden, catacombs and Israelite villages (pre-Iron Dome, of course):

The Timexpo Museum is nearby as well:

We have visited with my in-laws. I love visiting any museum and this one combines the clock and Timex history in Waterbury with an exhibit about Easter Island and Thor Heyerdahl’s expeditions. It seems Heyerdahl was friends with the Timex owners and the Kon-Tiki expedition was partly funded by them.

In 2004, the Hartford Courant ran an interesting story about the “Radium Girls” of Timex. These young girls were paid for each piece produced; they painted the dial faces for the glow-in-the-dark wristwatches. Many died of radium poisoning as the girls “were told they could paint faster if they dipped their brushes into the radium-laden paint and sharpened the bristles with their lips.” This was known as lip pointing. Being good at your job was deadly.

Don’t expect this reader to visit any local attractions:

This week’s view was taken from a room in the back of the Courtyard Marriott at 63 Grand St, Waterbury, CT, overlooking I-84 and the desolate hellscape that is central Connecticut. Please pardon my crankiness … it’s just that I think I may have nightmares for months about the finishing details of Home Depot and the graphic design of the Sports Authority logo.  I’ve attached a picture with my best guess at the window circled.  I’m not sure what the room numbering system is, so I’ll just guess 815.

A former winner:

Waterbury looks like a nice place with a wonderful history of political corruption, including being the old stomping grounds for both a convicted lieutenant governor and a convicted governor. The former was T. Frank Hayes who, according to the New York Times, in the 1930s “invested some of his kickbacks in a company called the Electric Steam Sterilizer Company [and] had a bill introduced requiring the installation of electric steam sterilizers in all of Connecticut’s public toilets… Coincidentally, the only electric steam sterilizers were manufactured by Electric Steam Sterilizer.” John G. Rowland was the convicted governor, who upon his release from federal prison became Waterbury’s allegedly “no show” economic development coordinator before leaving to host a talk radio show.

Above is the contest photo with some of the sights identified, including information on which churches host bingo nights in the vicinity. I know. Critical information. For some reason my wife thought I might have better things to do with my time than research area bingo options. Given the alternative was weeding in the garden, I thought otherwise.

We, and your weeds, are grateful. Meanwhile, Chini is not impressed:

Did you know that Waterbury, Connecticut is the “brass capitol” of the world? Well, it is and … dear lord, even the Wikipedia factoids are putting me to sleep with this one. This week’s pic was taken from roughly the eighth story of the Courtyard by Marriott and looks south by southwest along a heading of 212.23 degrees.

Missed the floor though, unlike this week’s winner, who had the most previous correct guesses among the handful who got this key detail right:

I would guess about the ninth floor!

Some other correct guessers are among these visual entries:

From the reader who submitted the contest’s view:

I was in Connecticut at the end of May for the wedding of my partner’s cousin. The bride is Portuguese and Italian American and the groom is of Irish descent; all three immigrant groups have a sizable presence in Waterbury.

As for the photo itself, it was taken from Room 915 of the Courtyard Marriott. If you search for “Waterbury Courtyard Marriott view” in Google Images, actually, you’ll find a very similar picture taken by someone else in the ninth row of results. I’m guessing that the triple combo of Home Depot, Sports Authority and the gas station is going to be the giveaway clue and there’ll be a swarm of correct identifications. Looking forward to seeing all the funny, impressive and obsessive answers that Dishheads will come up with!

The Dish has posted a few of my submissions as VFYWs in the past two years (which is about how long I’ve been a regular reader), but this is my first time being picked for the contest, so this is quite an honor. My next goal is to actually *win* the book–though I’m still a very long way off, thanks to those aforementioned funny, impressive and obsessive Dishheads.

(Archive: Text|Gallery)