VFYW: A Horror-Filled Red Herring

You'll want to throw it across the market, in contest #379.

(For the View From Your Window contest, the results below exceed the content limit for Substack’s email service, so to ensure that you see the full results, click the headline above.)

Starting us off this week is our UWS super-sleuth raised in NYC:

OK, I admit it: I got nothing. Feels like this view could be anywhere. Could that be a Ferris wheel I see reflected in the window at the far right of the view? And could Dusty be hiding some graffiti that would give away the show because the lettering narrows it down to a particular place? I was thinking Southeast Asia, but then also Baltic countries ... so I settled on Tallinn, Estonia. Because why not?

A quick story regarding last week’s view — which I identified as St. Louis instead of Louisville. (Can I get half credit for getting half the letters right?) In the late ‘90s, I was working for a consulting firm that had business with Prudential, and we went to Louisville to meet with the client for a few days. The thing that sticks with me is that all of the conference rooms were named after Kentucky Derby winners. Nice sentiment, but how, exactly, is one supposed to locate the Secretariat Conference Room in a multi-story building with dozens and dozens of rooms? The company had plenty of outsiders coming for meetings but hadn’t posted a directory or floor plan. We did a lot of wandering around.

At least in Google’s gigantic building in Chelsea, many of their conference rooms are named after Manhattan neighborhoods, and the rooms are situated as if the building were Manhattan itself. So if you know NYC geography, you can find the Washington Heights room. But if you’re new to the City, you’re out of luck ... you might as well be looking for the Seattle Slew room in Louisville.

Seattle Slew on the move

I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with for this week!

Another sleuth guesses for this week, “Harbor/port at Fukokoa, Japan?” Another goes with “Auckland, New Zealand.” A sleuth in St. Louis gets to the right country:

Portland, Oregon? I’m gonna be pissed if that’s not a Ferris wheel.

It is, but not in Portland. This photo was taken on a Ferris wheel in Portland, with my niece pretending to be scared of heights:

From a previous winner:

Happy Wednesday! I forgot all about the VFYW until 10pm tonight. One hour or so of sleuthing and all I have is ... Portland. The view is very similar to the view from PDX airport looking across the Columbia River. It will be interesting to see the location, and how the Ferris wheel plays into the solution.

Here’s the solution from Chini — from thousands of feet away:

The grand-champion and busy lawyer adds:

I drink coffee. Lots of it. Ungodly amounts. Comes with the trade, I suppose. And over the years I’ve become quite the coffee snob, buying ever more expensive brewing equipment. So it feels appropriate that this week’s view, so central to American coffee history, appeared the same day I got my fancy new coffee grinder. As for those who had trouble finding the view itself, all I can say is this: if it wasn’t the first place you looked, or the second, then it was definitely the third place.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off for another day of trying to master Hoffman’s pourover technique:

Another sleuth gets to the right state:

Tacoma, Washington is our best bet, based on Google Maps searching and the deductive reasoning of my fiancé. We believe the bridge is the TOTE Maritime Alaska (Tacoma Terminal). Cheers from longtime readers, and first-time submitters, recently relocated (and engaged) to Pasadena, California!

Congrats! Another sleuth is confident that “the view is of Port of Tacoma on Commencement Bay.” But a Phoenix sleuth names the right city:

I hope the Ferris wheel reflection in the window isn’t a red herring!