VFYW: Another Kind Of Safe Space

For contest #437, we see a calm scene in a perpetual war zone.

(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.)

From the winner of last week’s contest:

Wow, I’m stunned! Thank you so much — I’ve wondered what it would be like to win this contest! What a way to start the weekend! I will take the free subscription, as my previous one is just about to run out. Good timing!

And I will take this victory as another sign we are meant to go on that trip next spring to Slovenia and Croatia!

Send pics! For this week’s view, a sleuth writes:

Must be Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. Yellow license plates on American cars, palm trees, pool, a variety of condos (some with balconies probably facing the sea and some not), and the type of construction all lead me to this answer.

The Brookline super-sleuth jumps to Europe:

The license plates look EU, with the blue part on the left, so that hints at the right continent. Looking at the parked cars, the yellow rear license plates help to narrow it down further, but the white Peugeot-looking sedan facing us has a yellow license plate on the front. A quick Google search suggests that the only EU countries with yellow plates on the front AND the rear are the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

I was thinking of a more southern European country based on the palm trees surrounding the playground, but I gather that they can grow fairly far north if cared for properly. That said, if this is just a Dutch or Luxembourgian car visiting the south of France or something, then this is all moot.

We also see apartment blocks: decent height, seemingly upscale. Tinted glass balconies with railing planters and a shaded playground below suggest warm sunny weather. Using Google Earth to zoom through various metropolitan centers in the southern provinces of the Netherlands, I thought Eindhoven had a relatively large number of tallish apartment buildings, so I’ll go with that.

I’m curious to know what this cage-like structure is, framing our window. Perhaps it’s some kind of architecturally creative building, of which Eindhoven seems to have quite a few.

The submitter of the view explains the cage-like structure: “I took the photo from the apartment’s safe room.” Our globetrotter in Alaska labels more clues:

Another goes with simply, “Taranto, Italy?” Another sleuth:

It’s Tuesday, and I spent the weekend with family. We were celebrating the life of my uncle who died in February at the age of 98. As you and Andrew both know, it’s never easy losing a loved one, but we decided to celebrate. We had a wonderful event on the beach in California with over 80 family members and friends in attendance. The theme was Hawaiian Celebration: we had food, leis, and everyone wore Hawaiian clothes. We celebrated the life of someone who always had an open door. We miss him terribly and hope to continue his hospitality.

As a mediocre sleuth, I have only a minimal idea, so I’m going to guess Singapore. We lived there from 1997-2001 and I’m getting a SE Asia vibe with both the window grills and the playground cover. 

OK, starting over: the cars have left-hand drive, which means right-hand traffic, so it can’t be Singapore (bummer — I totally missed Singapore when the VFYW covered it). Plus, the blurred-out license plates don’t really seem to match the right-hand-traffic countries in Asia. 

I’m going to guess the Mediterranean Coast. Could be Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, due to the palm trees, but that’s about as far as I got.

Condolences to our sleuth, and that celebration of life sounds wonderful. The celebration a few weeks ago for my stepdad, Steve, was also lovely — a perfect sunny day with scores of friends and family, brimming with misty eyes, stories, and smiles:

(L to R: my mom embraced by Steve’s niece, Dawn, with my brother and his wife in the background; Mom posed with Steve’s son, Michael, on top of the 1948 Kenworth semi-trailer truck that Steve and my mom fully restored over a decade; and the two of us. If you’re curious, a local news reporter here (starting at the 3:20) interviewed Mom and Steve at a car show last year at their retirement community in Vancouver.)

Back to the window search, a sleuth gets to the right region: “Cyprus, most likely.” The super-sleuth in San Mateo names the right country in the Middle East:

I’m a little late with this. But it doesn’t matter because this week ends my streak of correctly identifying the building from which the VFYW was taken (which is 16 times in a row) and and correctly identifying at least the location (28 times in a row).

Although I can’t identify the city, I will take a swing at the country: Israel. Having worked there in high-tech many years ago, I think I recognize the construction materials as Israeli. There are also a number of license plates in the VFYW, although they’re very blurred:

This may be confirmation bias, but squinting, they might have a yellow background with a blue block on the left. Both of those features would be consistent with license plates in Israel:

Developing a VFYW Reimagined without knowing the city in which the VFYW was taken is somewhat problematic, so I’m not going to try this week. I’m hoping I’ll have a better report for you next week.

Here’s the mixologist in Austin:

Woot! Now that’s a window contest. Super challenging.

Not much to go on at first glance. The vegetation looks Mediterranean, with the Italian cypress trees in the distance. Some generic limestone apartment buildings, a children’s playscape with shade structures and a few cars in some interesting parking spaces. I was able to identify the license plates as Israeli, so that’s where I started.

Some searches for apartments and condos in Israel confirmed that the architecture was similar, but there are thousands of apartment buildings in a similar style. I figured we were likely near the coast with the lush vegetation and flat landscape, so I started in Tel Aviv.

One assumption that I made was that the view was looking west, based on what looked like satellite dishes on the tops of the far buildings. That made it much more difficult to find the location until I abandoned that assumption. Assumptions can kill you in this contest.

I went through Google satellite views, trying to find the park/green space with the distinctive shade structures with the right cluster of apartment buildings around it. There are a lot of those shade structures— very common throughout Israel. Then I ran into another snag: a lot of the street-view imagery in and around Tel Aviv is old, like 2011. Many of the buildings that show up in the overhead satellite view come up as empty fields on street view.

After scouring Tel Aviv for a match and coming up empty, I worked up and down the coast, looking at Ashkelon, Ashdod and Netanya, but nothing seemed to be a match.

He went on to get the right city and building: “This was a hard-won victory and it felt GOOOOD!” Berkeley chimes in:

When Jeff the mixologist floated his suspicion of having coined the title super-sleuth, I was doubtful because my own memory of first receiving that honorific felt older than October 2021. (The reason for the memory being vivid is that my guess was placed very high-up in the writeup that week because I was a thousand miles off and in the wrong country.) But the archive doesn’t lie, nor does the mixologist. My title’s first appearance came two weeks after he introduced the phrase, and by then I’d racked up over 50 kills.

This week I watched the buddy-cop movie 22 Jump Street — a shockingly underrated comedy I can’t believe I’m just seeing ten years after it came out — and either Channing Tatum or Jonah Hill used the phrase “super-sleuth” in a scene. Dope.

Here’s the super-sleuth from Santa Monica

It’s definitely Israel, and probably Holon. The license plates were a bit of a red herring to me. Because of the blue stripe I assumed Europe, and so Netherlands (being yellow) — but not with palm trees, unless some Spanish development populated largely by the Dutch.

Having previously lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which has a famously large Hassidic enclave, I am very familiar with the obsession with window grilles, regardless of high up on the building. Mothers will even put small children in some of the more enclosed types, which must be seen to be believed. Hence, I’m wondering if Israeli number plates have blue strips, which it seems they do.

The precise view will take more time, though, I am seeing that Israel seems to be where architecture goes to die.

Another sleuth:

This one I had to try! For sure it’s in Israel — probably some small town in the suburbs of Tel Aviv. The unreasonable combination of palm trees and cypresses is an Israeli favorite. The lamely identical buildings, probably all built at the same time, are typical of these suburbs-cities that grow from nothing in a glimpse. The weird shades above the kids playground, the sky with never any clouds ... it all points to Israel.

I took a wild guess as to which city, though, since they are kind of all the same. I’m from São Paulo and live in Tel Aviv, have a lot of friends who live in cities like the one in the pic, but it’s very hard to differentiate one small town from the other. I’ll take my chances with Ramat Hasharon.

The super-sleuth in Ridgewood went with the country’s second-biggest city:

It’s obviously Israel, but where? Likely Tel Aviv or its outskirts, with a dark horse of Jerusalem. I can’t tell you how many photos and street-view blocks I traversed looking for an exact match for those buildings, but there are so many that look just like it, with ever-so-slight variations on number of windows, presence of balconies, etc. I’m fully expecting tonight to have a dream (or maybe nightmare?) where I’m playing Tetris, but it’s those white buildings plummeting downwards instead of the usual pieces. 

The Bend super-sleuth goes with the aforementioned dark horse:

It’s an affluent, Western-world-seeming, Mediterranean-looking place. I see European car models. Europeans buy lots of European-brand cars, but most everyone else seems to prefer Asian-brand cars. The flora and the architecture, however, don’t really look like Mediterranean Europe. Outside of Europe, I think that Israel is the most likely location. My guess is Jerusalem. 

That was also the guess for this sleuth:

When I saw the picture, the buildings with what looked like Jerusalem stone jumped out as definitely being Israel. And it looks like one of the license plates says “IL”, which would be on some Israeli license plates. Also, it looks like an Orthodox Jewish boy or man is in a window wearing a black hat:

The park in the background looks to me like Sacher Park in Jerusalem, and the trees behind the field also look like the trees in that park. There are palm trees near the building in the view that also appear on Google Maps. The buildings would need to be on the east or northeast side of the park, since the sun would need to be somewhat to the south, based on the shadows. My best guess is the picture was taken from this complex:

I live in Passaic, NJ, but I have twice run the Jerusalem Marathon, which starts and ends in Sacher Park. The first time I ran it, the weather was miserable: 40 degrees Fahrenheit, 30 mph winds, and on-and-off heavy rain. It rained most of the week leading up to the marathon, which ends in the middle of a field. They built a platform so the run could finish on solid ground. About 20 feet past the finish line we had to exit and walk on a muddy mess across the entire field, so I returned to America with plenty of Jerusalem dirt on my running shoes.

Another place in Israel: “Ramat Gan? Looking toward Tel Aviv University?” Another guesses, “Gush Dan, North Tel Aviv, close to HaYarkon Park ... but I cannot identify the playground.” Speaking of those playgrounds:

Hi Chris! Hope all is well. As you’ve seen, I’m a more consistent Dish-dissenter than VFYW submitter, particularly when it comes to Andrew’s Israel-related analysis, but I had to play the contest this week, since the view immediately made me think of Israel. 

This past summer was my 10th trip there, so there were some giveaway clues from all these visits, including the hills in the background, the Jerusalem-limestone facade, the flora and fauna, the yellow license plates, the teeny tiny parking spots with small cars super-close together, and the triangular shade awnings covering the playground. These awnings are everywhere in Israel, including on the boardwalk in Tel Aviv — the “tayelet” — where they cover what I like to call “adult playgrounds” with outdoor gym equipment that are located every few blocks. I’ve exercised under these awnings and also spent a bit of time watching shirtless Israeli men exercise under these awnings! 

But I digress. (Also, I just got married on 9/28/24, so I probably shouldn’t be talking about shirtless Israeli men!) Another digression, but my husband and I are heading to Melbourne (for the Australian Open) and New Zealand (for the hobbits) for our honeymoon, so we’ll take any recommendations from this VFYW community!

Yes please. Another town:

This looks exactly like the buildings that have popped up around my parents’ town in Israel: Netanya. The green-and-blue awnings are typical of those that cover playgrounds. I grew up in Paris but spent the two months of les grandes vacances in Netanya every year. I eventually moved there for college, and my siblings followed suit. Our parents made alya 10 years ago (Happy Alya-versary!)

Yet another town comes from a previous winner in Vancouver, WA:

I’m pretty sure this view is in Israel, because the buildings match, the vegetation and license plates seem right, and those umbrella shade coverings seem common in Israel — you can even see them on Google Maps. Haifa is my guess, based on it being a work destination for tech employees to travel for their jobs, among others I’m sure. My sleuthing skills need strengthening to get to the right spot in this kind of view! I will be very interested to see how others do it.

I feel lucky to have been to Israel in the past. It was during the Second Intifada in 2004, when I visited a friend and her husband who was doing a three-year overseas work assignment near Tel Aviv. The plane landed in the middle of the night and took off again immediately, as the flight crews were not allowed to stay overnight. So many fascinating sights to see, culture to absorb, and history to learn about! I remember being in Jerusalem on Good Friday, and lining up at a bakery to purchase bagels at sundown on the last day of Passover.

That trip has been on my mind this last year as I’ve been following the heartbreaking events unfolding there. I may not agree with some things the government is doing, but although not being Jewish, I appear to be a Zionist at heart.

Here’s another bid for Haifa:

I’m feeling slightly less inept this week, remembering past hints from real sleuths.  First I thought Spain: European-sized car license plates; dense stone-clad apartment complex; palm trees and upscale second-home-by-beach landscaping vibe. But Googling triangle sun-shaded playgrounds in Spain got me nowhere.

Recalling past hints about googling license plates, I found only Israel has long yellow plates with black writing both front AND back of car. I hope. 

I figure it’s Haifa, due to the coastal vibe, although I guess it could also be Tel Aviv or … a bunch of other cities. I stumbled upon the following photo, labeled the Neve David neighborhood in Haifa, and taller buildings look like might even match!

So that’s as good a guess as I’ve got this week. I can’t manage the energy for more slogging through photos and street-view maps to try to find exact window. Fingers-crossed that proximity will count.

Next up is Thomas, on behalf of the weekly sleuth trio in Vancouver, WA (where we have a disproportionally big contingent among our sleuths):

We struggled with this one. All the buildings look the same, so we went with the adage to “look for a hotel near the airport.” We did not succeed, so that’s why we went with Or Yehud.

Here’s the right city, and building, courtesy of the “a-maize-ing sleuth” in Ann Arbor:

This week’s puzzle is the hardest in months, partly because the new construction made most of the online data outdated. My first hint came from this image I found: