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.
Regarding our latest contest, in which not a single reader guessed Hungary, let alone Budapest, a reader laments:
Sigh. As you can see from this email I sent my friend on Saturday, I had correctly guessed the VFYW this time, and it would have been the first time I ever entered, too – I just got snowed with work and forgot to follow up and actually submit the entry. It's the first one I have ever known instantaneously, and I blew it.
The email to her friend indicates that she even guessed the correct district in Budapest – the 5th. It never hurts to guess! Even without a multi-media presentation of photos and schematics.
This week’s contest was much more difficult than we imagined, and we received only three dozen entries from readers. One writes:
Good one. Can’t write much, busy week ahead. But from a quick glance, I’d say Baku, Azerbaijan.
Another writes:
ANOTHER European city? Anyway, the onion domes don’t look Russian enough for me, so I’m guessing Munich.
Another:
Hamburg, Germany. I am sure of this. My partner and I have gotten a fair number exactly correct, so just a matter of making this exact … more to follow.
Nothing followed. Another:
Well this one is simultaneously very easy and very difficult. The khrum (church) spire and bell tower in the background would say nothing other than “Russia” to anyone who has ever lived or been there. Unfortunately, pretty much every settlement of more than the tiniest size will have these same spires and bell towers in great abundance. Someone who is familiar with the building, factory, and tower to the left will do me one better and recognize the exact location. I, on the other hand, will hazard a guess at the wonderful City of Yaroslavl in the “Golden Ring.” The white brick buildings to the right remind me of that part of the Russian city.
Another:
This VFYW reminds me of the view from an attic apartment for rent near el Puerto de Toldeo in Madrid, Spain. It was 13 years ago, so I’m thinking I must get extra points for powers of recall if it turns out that my guess is within an ass’s roar.
A Star Wars nerd writes:
This is clearly the northern suburbs of the new Imperial sector of Bestine. Note the above ground imperial architecture as opposed the the mostly below ground domed structures found in the old city area. I can’t give you an exact street address, as the Empire has deemed that area of Bestine as classified and it will only show up as a blur if you use Google Universe to map the city.
Bestine, the “capital” of Tatooine, is situated far west of Mos Eisley (a wretched hive of scum and villainy) near the south-western Dune Sea. It was also one of the earliest settlements on the planet, but never thrived economically, sharing the same problems as many other settlements on that dry world. The Galactic Empire eventually established its base of operations there and placed its regional governor in the city’s Main Hall.
Back on Earth:
Maybe I’ve just been seeing too many vacation photos lately, but that blue sky, with nothing in the distance, and the sort-of European look? It has to be Istanbul. I think it’s somewhere near Beyoglu, facing south. I’m not that familiar with the area, and Google maps is way behind with resolution. But I see a lot of promising tile roofs close to the Hotel Bristol, so I’ll guess it was taken from there.
Another:
Long time reader, first time participant. Don’t really have the time for the rigorous analysis that some contestants are able to pull of, but given what look like Orthodox (onion dome), Polish (what appears to be another church in the background), and Soviet (downright ugly buildings in the foreground) architectural influences, I figure it’s somewhere Baltic. Why not Riga, Latvia? Probably way off, but I’ll get this one day.
Another gets close:
The church spires visible look very Polish to me. The building construction looks very European, so this isn’t a scene from Chicago or Cleveland or another Great Lakes city with a big Polish-American population, so I think it has to be Poland. Other than that, you got me. I’m guessing Warsaw is too obvious a location, and I think we once did Krakow in this contest, so I’ll just go with Lodz.
Closer still:
This has been a brilliantly diverting one. When I first saw the onion dome on the tower in the background, I thought it must be in the Low Countries. I’ve seen domes like that on large buildings in Ghent and Mechelen, for example. What I haven’t seen is a tower that matches, despite a pretty thorough search of towns and towers in the region. So, off to Austria and surrounding, which are also known for their onion domes … and here I’ve been finding towers that look similar. But now I’m out of time, and still no dice, so I’m plumping for Maribor, Slovenia. I know there are tons of similar towers in the region, and this looks to be a fair-sized city, probably bigger than this, so this is a pretty much a play for proximity.
Alas, I expect this’ll be the clocktower on a train station in a Dutch city I somehow missed. Finally, I got my View From Your Window book a few weeks ago, and it’s splendid. Thank you!
Maribor, Slovenia is the most proximate guess to the actual location of this week’s window – Budapest, Hungary – but since our reader has already won a contest, we’re awarding the prize to the runner up:
Salzburg, Austria? The city must have the greatest density of cool looking green steeples per square meter.
Close enough for a win!
(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.
by Chris Bodenner
A reader writes:
Good one! It has the feel of a Eastern European city, with an early 20th century factory predominating the scene. Currently boarded up on the upper floors, with new residential towers going up around it suggests rapid economic growth. It can’t be Europe though, given that the trees look a bit more tropical, and a flat-roofed building wouldn’t handle the snows of Eastern Europe. Never been there, but let’s take a shot at Nanjing, China. It’s a city that’s in transition from industry to residential. China’s as good a guess as any.
Another writes:
I’m a long time follower of VFYW, but I’ve never had more than the vaguest idea before (though it’s fun to guess). But this week’s looked instantly familiar to me. As a born and bred Yorkshireman, I’m convinced that it’s in the North of England, going by the tower blocks, the colour of the buildings, the grimly industrial feel, and the rain. I’d guess Sheffield (or possibly Manchester or Leeds) based on the hills, but I can’t get any more specific than that.
Another:
Well I have pretty much of nothing to go on this week except perhaps the split-type air conditioners that are pretty rare in the U.S. I wouldn’t put it past you guys to post a picture from Andrew’s trip, somewhere in Blighty, as he calls it. Perhaps one of his old haunts in London? Googling “blue balconies UK” was a lot of fun, as I’m sure some of your readers can attest. But the rest of my searches were fruitless. I think I’ll go back to the blue balconies.
Another:
My guess is probably entirely wrong, but this looks a lot like the University District in Seattle, facing east from a window a little to the east of Interstate 5, just opposite the Wallingford area of town. (Wallingford sits on the west side of I-5.)
Another:
That image looks familiar from my days at the Computer Science department at Ohio State University! The tall building in the background is Morril tower, the undergraduate dorm. The picture is taken from a window on the fifth floor or higher looking southwest out of Dreese labs. I’ve never been this close to identifying anything, so I never attempted to send anything in, but I hope I’m right this time!
Another:
If I had to hazard a wild guess, I would say East Berlin – the dilapidated buildings are consistent with the Soviet bloc.
Another:
It’s got to be somewhere in the former Eastern bloc – Moscow is just a guess. The building in the foreground looks to be of an older (i.e. pre-Soviet) industrial era, which was converted to offices or residences. The buildings behind look like typical socialist apartment blocks, complete with balconies converted to enclosed porches. And the tall buildings in the background look like contemporary apartment buildings for those prospering in the new economy and able to afford them. Nice pic(k) for a panorama of the changing social orders of the last 100 years.
Another:
This reminds me of the area in vicinity of the Oscar Schindler factory I saw while visiting Krakow.
Another:
With the combination of unkempt low Soviet apartment block and the soaring new towers, that looks a lot like the neighborhood I spent two summers in a few years ago visiting family in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Correct! Another gets more specific:
You guys must really get your sadism on by picking pics from areas without streeview! My first
guess was some city in Poland, and in the course of my googling I quickly hit upon some random internet forum argument about which Eastern European city had the best skyline. Of the cities pictured in that thread, Kiev buildings had the closest “look” to those in the VFYW … who knew these inane internet conversations ever led to anything?!
After I saw this photo, the hardest part was finding the actual buildings, located a mile or two to the southeast of where the pic was tagged. It’s kind of hard to describe the window, not a lot of landmarks nearby, so I attached a picture. It looks to be like 7th or 8th floor, in the center of that building in the middle of the block bounded by Ivana Federova, Chervonoarmiis’ka (phew!), Dymytrova, and Anri Barbyusa Sts. This might be part of the nearby ?????? ?????? ??????? ??? or “British Motors Ukraine comrade” facility, which is what the first building seen is labelled as, or maybe it’s just an apartment building.
Another has been playing a while:
A first hunch said Kiev, based on the style of recent high-rise and the low hills. However, it being subject of VFYW contest #24, I couldn’t imagine Kiev being another
VFYW. Still, being unable to come up with anything else, I threw in a Google images search for “kiev high-rise”, and, very lucky, it came up with a photo of the building with the weird roof on the right side of the photo on some apartment rental website. And, as that website was so kind to provide me with the address of that building, it was then relatively easy to locate the other high-rise buildings and then the building of the submitter.
See the map attached: red circle for the weird building on the right, the two orange circles for the other high-rise in the photo, and the green arrow for the building from where the photo was taken (with the older buildings in the front, ignore the A).
Address unclear as it could be any of two or three streets, but it seems to be taken from the 5th floor (6th floor in US?) from the right side of the building (looking at the map).
Ironically, the photo of VFYW contest #24 has been taken at just three blocks, or 600 meters walking, from this week’s photo. A coincidence? See the second photo attached: the A for this week’s photo and the B for week 24. Though this week’s building should technically be visible on the other one, it seems to be too low to have made it. One apartment block in front of the weird-looking building seems also be visible on the other one though.
Coordinates: 50.428629,30.518192
There were several wonderful and detailed answers this week, so breaking the tie was difficult. But the following reader participated in the contest the most thus far and got several correct, so the prize goes to him:
This photo may be proof that I should be careful what I wish for. For a long time I’ve been hoping for a contest photo from the former Soviet Union. This is clearly that. The buildings in the mid-ground are variants of khrushcheby, a Soviet neologism that combines Khrushchev and slum. There are also a few three-paned windows evident, which were characteristic of Soviet architecture. They were necessitated by the idiocy of a centralized boiler system that went full-blast from October to April, regardless of the weather. The two largest panes were typically glued shut in the winter. The third pane, usually a small square in the upper left, was left unglued so it could be opened in case of warm spells.
Because there appears to be a hill in the background, my first thought was Moscow’s Presnya district. But the picture doesn’t correspond with anything I can find on a map. So I’ll go out on a limb and say that this is right-bank Kiev. Khrushchev was chief of the Ukrainian Communist Party after the war, and was a patron of the sort of cost-conscious architecture evident here. Admittedly, these aren’t the most ubiquitous forms of khrushcheby, which were made from pre-fabricated concrete panels starting in the mid-1950s. But many of the initial experiments that Khrushchev sponsored in Kiev were with “large blocks.” Khrushchev describes these efforts in his memoir.
I can’t locate the exact vantage point of the photo, but I’d guess it was taken in the vicinity of Olympic Stadium, perhaps from a building in the courtyard between ulitsa Dymytrova and ulitsa Ivana Fedorova. It’s a southeast view, I think. Please see the attached photo:
I’ll feel really foolish if this turns out to be Edmonton.
(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.
by Chris Bodenner
A reader writes:
United States, based on the cars (the dock has what look like American trucks) and handicapped parking slots. My wife saw pool cabanas like these at a DC hotel, so it seems likely to be American.
The green Sennebogen crane is from a German company and not that common in US. This sent me all around the nation: Peru, Illinois; Charleston, SC; but none of these locals seemed right. I also see barges and a tug that looks like a pusher. Pusher tugs are typically found on a river, throwing me off track a bit. In the background we see what look like sailboats, indicating a more diverse boating community than that which we see near the pool. This speaks to a middle class that one might find in an urban-suburban area.
My first thought is that it’s along the St. Lawrence or Great Lakes, just from the color and a sensation the photo gives me, but it seems wrong from the vegetation. Vegetation does not sing West Coast, lacking fir trees of NW or live oak-golden hills of California.
Sun orientation: shadows indicate noonish at angle not too close to vertical, more like the 40s latitudes at their angle of insolation maximum – end of June – therefore river or estuary at this location on an east-west axis. More than enough sites in Boston area for such a locale. Color of water takes me to a more northern estuary river system, so New England works better than more southern systems. Less sediment loading, as we would find in a more southern river-estuary.
I pick the Boston area, for the Fourth of July.
Another writes:
So I lack the patience and talent exhibited by so many of your readers, and I already have the book, but I can’t help chiming in here. This almost has to be Buffalo, NY. I’m sure a number of places have small harbors adjacent abandoned grain elevators, but this looks too familiar. And isn’t that fuzzy cluster of tallish structures in the background Hamburg, NY’s five or so windmills?
Another:
I’ve only ever gotten one of these right (the view from Olin Library, Washington University), and I don’t ordinarily guess (except in my mind), but this looks so much like one of the lakes made when the Tennessee River was damned up by the TVA. I grew up on Wilson Lake, but this isn’t Wilson. I’ll take a stab at it and say Pickwick Lake (which meanders between Tennessee, Mississipp, and Alabama), but I’m picking the Alabama part of Pickwick out of loyalty to my home state. I know there will be a precise winner, but I’m too tired after watching my seven-year-old son play three back-to-back baseball games (in 95 degree Georgia heat) to dig around for something more precise.
Another:
I’m a fourth generation Torontonian, currently living in Washington, DC. Those five silos to the left look like the Canada Malting Company silos located near Queen’s quay on the Toronto harbourfront. I did some searches, however, and the buildings around the silos don’t quite match up with pictures of the area. Still, I’m sticking with Toronto harbour, because I have no better guesses.
Another:
I have a sneaking suspicion that this location is near Cape Canaveral, FL, especially since the final shuttle launch is starting to make headlines and is on schedule for later this week. The handicap parking spots, cars, and marina suggest an American location near a coast line or peninsula. The vegetation and warmth suggest a southern coastal state. The vague industrial towers deep in the background might be a shuttle launch pad scaffolding or whatever. Alternatively, the location might be on a lake somewhere, but I’m more inclined to guess that we’re looking at someone’s vantage point on the Cape Canaveral area. Perhaps Cape Canaveral is too obvious, so I’ll go with Merritt Island, FL, USA.
A surprisingly large number of readers guessed along those lines. Another writes:
Having grown up on the banks of the Mississippi near St. Louis and traveled the length of the river going north, this photo had an immediate familiarity when I saw it on Saturday – the grain elevator in the background, the foliage of the deciduous trees in summer. I’ll be stunned if this isn’t the upper Midwest along the banks of the Mississippi, which is the only river in the US with this type of width. Hell, I can almost feel the humidity.
Alas, my boyfriend and I were occupied Saturday/Sunday with Orgullo (Pride) in Madrid over the weekend, and while of course I had every good intention of searching for grain elevators adjacent to bends and marinas on the Mississippi for hours (not!), he’s now asking me if I have guessed again since we sent you a picture from Madrid last January that you used. Sheepishly, I confessed no, so before the deadline tomorrow I’m giving it my best guess. The upper part of the Mississippi in Minnesota has numerous naturally occurring lakes on the river, which explains the expansive water view, so I think it’s somewhere up there between Red Wing and LaCrosse, Wisconsin, and I’ll go with Lake City, Minnesota.
In the right area. Another:
Ok, so: much like the Duluth window, the evident lack of tides or big waves here makes this an inlet or lake. Again, like Duluth, let’s say maybe it’s a Great Lake. That also makes that a cement terminal, not a grain terminal. Again, like Duluth.
So I picked a city – Manitowoc, WI – that has a cement terminal and a marina more or less next to each other on the shore, didn’t worry about whether they’re situated correctly or not, and definitely didn’t worry about those odd black and white structures next to the swimming pool. This was not a weekend to spend scouring Google Maps for this spot. Could be elsewhere in WI, could be Michigan, could be a lot of other places.
Closer. Another:
This photo has a Michigan “look” to it. The sky, clouds, and water remind me of my native state, which is dotted with lakefront hotels, resorts, and recreational facilities, hence the pool and the marina with the small boats. The flat land and the trees made me think of a place south of Mackinac Bridge, so we’re under the bridge and therefore in troll territory. While the body of water looks modest, the presence of a major dock and grain silos indicate proximity to the shipping lanes of a Great Lake. Careful consideration of the coastline leads to the city of Muskegon, and your photographer was looking west from within the Shoreline Inn and Conference Center (750 Terrace Point Boulevard), which overlooks Muskegon Lake:
Another:
I believe this location is of my old home town Muskegon. I recognized the building in the mid-ground on the far left, as that is where they used to (and possibly still do) do laser light shows on the 4th. In fact, the window this was taken out of will give whoever is staying there a fantastic view of the 4th of July’s fireworks. To break it down even more, the building this was taken had to be the northern facing of the Shoreline Hotel (Ah, Wedding Night memories).
Another:
The Shoreline Inn is a newly constructed hotel located at the southeast end of the lake on the site of a old foundary. I moved to Muskegon from the Boston area and my parents frequently stay in the hotel when visit, although I doubt they submitted the photo. Muskegon Lake had pollution problems in the ’50s and ’60s but is now quite clean and well known for fishing and sailing. The lake freezes over in the winter and is used by hundreds for ice fishing. My office is located about 400 yards from the hotel and I submitted a VFYW picture of Muskegon Lake in winter as the ice was just beginning to form.
Here is the afforementioned photo, excavated from the Dish inbox:
Another:
Hurray! Another Great Lakes coastal shot. I guessed the Duluth one in about 5 seconds, but this one was not obviously in Wisconsin and definitely not in Minnesota or other Lake Superior locations (too flat for the North Shore). In fact, I wasn’t sure where to look next, as it is not on open water but rather in a sheltered bay. The background contained a commercial port facility with silos (for grain or other material), so it was not an inland site. I found the location within 15 minutes of searching a couple of combos of “marina, silo, great lakes”, then got a hit with “great lakes marina pool”.
Here is a stock aerial of the marina. The photo is taken from the Shoreline Inn, which is the large building in the aerial. I’m going to go with one of the penthouse rooms, possibly The Tuscany (Room 1011). Here is another shot from that room, and likely that window, but angled to the right of the VFYW:
Another:
Thank you for tossing your frustrated readers a bone. This was an easy one. It took me only 20 seconds in Google Earth to verify that this picture was taken from a west-facing window at the Shoreline Inn in Muskegon, MI. Though I grew up in a different Michigan harbor town, the colors of summer foliage and fresh water are far better than a madeleine. I’ll leave it up to a more diligent reader to determine the exact vantage point.
The following reader was the most exact guesser and correctly guessed a difficult view in the past without clinching the prize, so he wins the contest this week:
Grain silos, water, vegetation that looks like something in the north … water … probably somewhere along the Great Lakes. Well, thanks to Google Maps (and according to my wife, way too much time spent on the computer), this photo is taken from the Shoreline Inn, 750 Terrace Point Blvd., Muskegon, MI. I would think that it’s from the eighth floor, room 812.
Room 901, to be precise.
(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:
I live in Albany, New York and read this blog daily. I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw that my apartment was in the VFYW contest (the non-gabled building to the left). Un-f-ing-believable for a number of reasons. 1) I work in the legislature and walk down State every day for work; 2) after session wrapped on Friday, I, like many other staff, took a well-deserved break from Mondays and missed this window view, which 3) figures because I never have any idea where the picture is from and, 4) I have, in the past, thought about sending in my own pic to confound everyone with Albany’s diverse architectural styles, so it’s kinda awesome that my apartment made it in without me sending a pic.
Of actual interest to you and maybe your other readers: the picture you posted of the winning entry includes, on the right side in the dark brick, the NYS Republican committee building, which is a fitting tribute because it was Republican Senators Roy McDonald, Mark Grisanti, Jim Alesi and especially Stephen Saland that made the vote possible. I imagine this diminishes my chances of getting my own VFYW, but it is a fitting Dish tribute to a truly historic moment.
A reader writes:
You have to be fucking kidding!
Another writes:
Summary of clues: satellite dish, satellite dish direction, a steep Dutch gabled roof, the shadows of two deciduous trees, a dusky evening/morning sun, an air conditioner. Only those those pinched windows are unique, but they are not googlable. “Search by Image” turns up a set of brown faces.
Oh! another clue: pigeons on the ledge! Sigh. You aren’t giving us very much to work with. But, the compact neighbouring house is reminiscent of countless NYC buildings (that faded brick and the stone lacing, those keystones over the windows), and the Dutch-styled one next door of course complements the notion that this window’s view is part of a Manhattan milieu.
So, I nominate: Manhattan, in the neighbourhood of Washington Heights. I’ll be surprised if the person who gets this didn’t live next door for some period in their life and thus win by destiny rather than prowess. Is this VFYW deducible? Or am I an inferior sleuth?
It’s deducible, particularly if you think outside the window a little. Another:
Somewhere in New York City. I can’t get more specific than that, but I wanted to give at least a shot. I suspect Brooklyn, but I’m not sure.
The building on the left is classic NYC public school construction, circa 1929-40. I went to two schools on Staten Island with that basic look (PS 19 and Port Richmond High) and there are literally dozens of others still extant throughout the five boroughs. The style of that other building, while vaguely European, was a common motif on apartment buildings in the early years of the 20th Century. Wherever it is, the view is undoubtedly looking north, as the satellite dish (assuming a northern US location to be correct) would be pointed south.
Another:
The photo reminds me of Philly, when I visited last summer. It seems like the US on the East Coast based on the age of the buildings, which, in my non-expert opinion, seem to be from the late 1880s. The building strikes me as something a wealthy industrialist of the area would build. It’s an advertisement of wealth, but fit within the confines of the location. If you’re ever in Philly, check out the Lippincott House. It’s a beautiful bed and breakfast near Rittenhouse Square that I stayed at with my fiancee.
P.S. I’m still amazed by NY’s backbone last night. Now, if only California, my current state, can fix its mistake. I’m still ashamed of Ohio’s, my old home state, constitutional amendment in 2004. As progressive as Columbus can be, the rural areas and Cincinnati are not.
Another:
This screams Chicago to me. Where in Chicago, I don’t know. I say Chicago because of the unique edifice, suggesting some kind of East European influence. But the satellite dish, well-kept screen, apparent height (3 to 4 stories), and the color of the bricks. I’ve not responded to this contest before, but I’m always entertained by the Tuesday posts and the devotion of your readers.
Another:
I ran a diffraction analysis on the sky area. The distinct spacing of the bug screen is of a type only installed in Krakow, Poland.
Actually, I’m flying to Krakow shortly and won’t have a chance to contemplate this one for more than a few minutes, so that’s my guess.
PS. Don’t know if Andrew himself reads these contest entries, but I had the Dish and the live-feed from New York up side-by-side last night, and I’m celebrating with him and everyone else. We’re not equal until we all are, and this is a step towards that.
Another:
In this photo, the satellite dish appears to be pointing south. So the place in question is probably in the northern hemisphere. The proximity of the building in the picture and the one from where the photo has been taken suggest narrow (European?) streets. The curved roof with similarly curved dormers appears to be northern European. Googling a bit, I found that parts of Belgium seem to have a predilection for roofs that look a lot like that, and the city of Bruges seems to have a lot of them – so I’m going to go with that. Not many other clues available, as far as I can tell.
This is my second attempt at the VFYW contest – my first was last week, and I guessed Luanda, so I’m hoping I’m one of the seven people you mentioned as having guessed correctly!
Yep, you’re on the list of correct guessers. Another:
Judging from the abrupt juxtaposition of neo-Georgian and neo-Dutch architecture, this view could easily be Dupont Circle or adjacent neighborhoods in DC. Is this the view from YOUR window, Andrew?
Nope, but it can be found in the foreword of our book. Another:
Eugene, Oregon? Specifically, the building looks a LOT like St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, at the corner of Pearl St. and East 13th Avenue. I realize I’m probably about 7 or 8,000 miles off, but that’s my guess.
Closer to 3,000. Another:
Albany, New York? The style of the buildings looks like what you might see on State St. in Albany, near Washington Park. State Street also runs by the State Capitol. I’m guessing this location might not be a coincidence this weekend.
Good guess! It was sent to us two years ago and we never posted it. Another:
I recognized a building I have seen all my life and confirmed by walking a few blocks. I will be able to figure out the building from which the picture was taken when the threat of lightening subsides.
The reader never got back to us, so we pray the lightening wasn’t involved. Another:
When you put a Flemish Revival building up the day after the historic vote, Albany was the obvious place to go. I’ve never been, but I know the kind of street in a Northeast town where you find high-quality turn of the century architecture, and State Street fit the bill. Looks like the picture was taken from a third floor window of the Romanesque Revival townhouse across the street (one of the flat windows, not the bay).
Oh, and the building to the right of this Flemish Revival gem – a style briefly popular in the former Dutch colonies – is the Republican State Committee headquarters. But you knew that, already, didn’t you.
And congratulations. I watched live last night. It was inspiring and emotional. And Ruben Diaz aside, it was a remarkably thoughtful and eloquent display from a body we New Yorkers have grown to deplore. But Cuomo’s had a real effect – not just on this subject, but across the board. I don’t really know why or how. I voted for him, but I didn’t expect him to be so effective – on the budget, ethics reform, and now marriage equality. We’re a better state for it.
Another:
I won’t bother with getting Google Earth coordinates or screenshots of exactly what window the photo was taken, as I bought the VFYW book for my wife this past Christmas and we don’t need another. This is a great opportunity to tell you guys, however, that I took Post-It strips and covered the location of every single photograph in the book to make it a VFYW Contest book for her because she can’t get enough of this weekly feature.
Also, it seems a bit like cheating because we live in SmAlbany and I lived on that block about 10 years ago. Fun to finally get the answer correct, though! Keep up the great work, all.
Eight readers in all correctly guessed Albany, and none of them have nailed a difficult window in the past. But the following reader, an architect, was the most specific and closest to the actual address:
This was a piece of cake. I knew instantly that I was looking at a Dutch-Revival step-gable and not the real thing (in Amsterdam, say) – the Roman brick was a dead giveaway, and for this style of house to be located next door to a brick neo-Federal/Georgian with a dash of Beaux-Art (a.k.a. Modern French) there was only one state where this particular cultural confluence of architectural styles could possibly occur – New York.
Familiar with appearance of all the step-gable Dutch-Revival houses in New York City, I was quickly able to rule that out, and immediately asked myself: in what other prosperous cities in NY State before the turn of the last century would a private house require such a knowing, showy (and costly) display of state history? Albany, of course.
Ah, ha! How nicely you’ve worked in yet another layer of history by selecting the city of the moment on the morning of the historic marriage vote! And yes, two blocks away from the State Capitol! Knowing that all the best houses of that era in Albany are on State Street, it was very easy to locate the roof profile on Bing Maps aerial view (step-gables are uncommon, even in NY State), and boom! There we were! The houses at 300-315 State Street; shot from across the street, probably not coincidentally selected by you as another sly political reference – as it appears (per Google Maps) to be adjacent to the NY State Republican State Committee at 315 State Street … well, you can take over from here; I’m an unapologetic Roosevelt Democrat!
(Archive)
The Dish 