The view from the offices of Mixed Greens on the west side of Manhattan is a pretty spectacular one. There is enough distance to landmarks to make them appear not too overwhelmingly large, the side view of the city is a very interesting one... the windows in their office wrap around and so one can also look uptown, see the river... I think even the George Washington Bridge?, perhaps?
I remember that when I came to New York for the first time, I somehow expected the city to be all skyscrapers, neatly packed boxes, one next to the other, Manhattan, so I imagined, was all offices. (And police cars and cabs, of course.)
I really had no real clue...
It was much later that I found out that the geological makeup of Manhattan also is reflected in the height of the buildings here. Apparently bedrock comes closer to the surface in midtown, then dives under layers of sediments south of 30th street prehaps, just to resurface in lower Manhattan. This is why there are actually clusters of high-risers on the island... the rules go beyond the rules of money... they are the rules of the soil makeup...
Hmm, looking at the image below this is not very clear now, is it?...
The area to the left of the dividing window frame is above 25th street, the Empire State Building is on 34th and 5th... The right side of the photograph is the distant Madison Square Park, with the old Metropolitan life tower, made to look like the campanile at St. Mark's Square in Venice... It must have been interesting to see it at a time when it was the tallest building in the city, and also the tallest building in the world, I think... It looks now as if the city were its turtle neck sweater which it pulled almost over its head. It is still the tallest in its neighborhood, and if it were able to see, and its eyesight had really worsened over the years, it could imagine that it still is the tallest building in the city and in the world... a silly thought... (but can you imagine?)