(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.)
Holy cow that’s awesome! I’ll take the book, please.
I’ve been reading the Dish since the early blog days, and I’ve been a VFYW contestant for a few years. I run into Andrew most summers in PTown at Bear Week, and it’s always good to have a quick chat — sometimes politics, sometimes the weather ;)
That winner also got to this week’s location — virtually and IRL:
What’s crazy is that I was here just last month! [Redacted city] is wonderful. The coffee lives up to the hype, the people are super nice, and the city is very easy to get around. Our window location is just a block from Hosier Lane, which has some beautiful street art. Here’s my husband there:
Andrew and those fellow bears will appreciate the following beard sent by a new sleuth:
Hello! I’m a recent reader of your wonderful contests and first-time responder. I read the discussion about Hamilton, Ontario with great interest.
While I grew up in Michigan and now live in Dallas, the history of Hamilton is personal for me. Apparently my third great-grandfather, Alexander Aikman, was the first non-indigenous person born in what is now the Hamilton area, in 1790. His parents John and Hannah (Showers) Aikman left almost everything from their Pennsylvania farms behind (except some spoons) and fled to Canada during the War for Independence (with John and his brothers fighting on the side of the British). They landed in the Ancaster area of Hamilton and were granted 200 acre lots to stay and develop the land for Britain. They also received a fancy title from the king: United Empire Loyalists (which I think I might be able to get as well, as a descendent, though my American citizenship potentially calls my loyalty into question).
Here is Alexander Aikman all grown up:
Today, an old homestead apparently still stands, as well as an Aikman Avenue, and a local museum houses an Aikman family sword from the War of 1812. I will visit someday and hope to meet some cousins!
Speaking of cousins, I read online (so it must be true) that football great Troy Aikman is descended from Alexander’s brother, John Aikman. Though we live in the same town, cousin Troy has yet to invite us to Easter lunch. Maybe someday.
Speaking of ancestors, a sleuth on the Correct Guesser list recently sent this followup for our Portland contest:
I dabble a bit with family history, and several of my ancestors lived in the Portland area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. One of these was my great-great grandmother, Hulda McCoy. She was only a name on the family tree until I looked at Ancestry.com and found some Portland news articles describing her (gasp) scandalous behavior.
In January and February 1903, the Oregon Daily Journal printed multiple articles about Hulda. The first one covered her divorce from great-great grandpa George — under the headline “Another Booze-Fighter” — when Hulda was granted a divorce after telling the judge that George “called me very vile names, charging me with unchastity ... and he threatened to give me a turpentine bath”).
Only a month later, an article titled “Fair and Forty Finds Fond Fool — Hulda McCoy Accused of Mad Infatuation” reported that Hulda, a 44-year-old mother of five, had taken up with a 26-year-old man, Millard Shaver, whom Hulda described as “a dashing cavalier.” But the newspaper noted he was actually “a worthless, lazy, indifferent, good-for-nothing ... a vagrant, a mere sprig of loafing imbecility, a mockery on his sex.” Two days later, the paper seemed to settle the question in “Has Shaver Jilted Hulda? ‘Spendthrift’ Mrs. McCoy Feels That She is Wronged.”
The two must have reconciled, since Hulda — now Hulda Shaver — appeared in a few additional articles over the next two decades when she was either suing or being sued over various business ventures gone wrong.
Another followup on Hamilton comes from our super-sleuth in West Orange:
Hello! I’ve been a bit out of the mix for a while — though my best guess for last week was Toronto too! — but I was happy to see your music columnist feature the Arkells. I would be remiss not to plug their latest album, featuring covers of some beloved ‘80s songs.
It’s fantastic for fans of indie rock and ‘80s music alike. Hope people check it out.
Here’s another followup, from our resident mixologist:
Last week, I wrote that Canadian cocktails have nothing that gives them a national character, no specific ingredient that makes them distinctly Canadian. Some of your readers might ask (as my Canadian wife did), “What about Canadian whiskey?” I mean, it’s a type of whiskey that’s literally named after the country. And that’s a fair question, to a point.
But here’s the thing. Most Canadian whiskey just isn’t that great, when put up against the best bourbons, American ryes, Irish whiskeys, or especially Scotch whiskeys. There are some exceptions — I like Lot 40 and Collingwood — but the famous brands that people think of, like Crown Royal and Canadian Club, are fair to middling. Mostly people mix it with Coke or some other soda.
On top of that, Canadian whiskey doesn’t really make a good cocktail. I find it very corn-forward, and every time I’ve tried to make a cocktail with it, I’ve always thought it would be better served by an American rye. Besides, most of the Canadians I know who like whiskey don’t even drink Canadian whiskey; they prefer Irish whiskey and scotch. My wife’s Canadian uncle, who has a pretty well-stocked bar, doesn’t have any Canadian whiskey.
That all said, if anyone was offended by my overlooking Canadian whiskey last week, I apologize. It’s fine stuff — if you can’t get anything else.
On to this week’s view, a sleuth observes “the mixture of new construction and old, combined with bright, western sunshine — downtown Los Angeles?” Another goes with “downtown San Diego.”
Another notes, “Mercifully, you didn’t blur the Excelsior House name.”
From the beginning of the entry from our super-sleuth in Chicagoland:
So this puzzle is kind of interesting: it was harder to find than it should have been. “Excelsior house,” “skinny skyscraper,” “terraced glass highrise” are among the searches that could have taken me right to the solution, yet did not.
From a sleuth in Buffalo:
One building has a old engraved name on it: the Excelsior House. There is construction going on all over the area near that building, so I googled “Excelsior House AND Construction.” NYC came up a bunch first, but the Excelsior there is way too tall for this older looking gem. A bit more scrolling revealed Cape Town.
The super-sleuth in Sydney notes, “Dusty is hiding the stonework sign for the Elizabeth Chambers building, right next to Excelsior House on Elizabeth St.” Sweeping Dusty aside is the super-sleuth in Baltimore:
Google searches for the names of these two buildings lead straight to Texas:
Searching for Elizabeth Chambers (which you covered with Dusty) leads to the celebrity, Elizabeth Chambers, who is from Texas and founded the Texas-based BIRD Bakery chain of stores.
Searching for Excelsior House (which you did not cover up) leads to many links for the Excelsior House Hotel in Jefferson, Texas.
From a previous winner:
I felt certain you were giving us an early Christmas present by not putting the beagle over “Excelsior House” on the building across the street, but that didn’t turn out to be as helpful as expected. What was helpful, though, was the distinctive Collins Arch building in the distance.
Here’s a view of that odd building from the super-sleuth in Asheville (formerly “the wannabe super-sleuth”):
We are looking out at the Collins Arch complex, which is affectionately known as the Pantscraper:
Another Collins building is highlighted by this sleuth:
Before noticing the “Excelsior House” signage, I spent a few minutes trying to track down brutalist office buildings in cities. That didn’t get me very far, but I’m now curious about the building at 303-317 Collins St. There apparently used to be a weather beacon on top that would flash lights in a pattern from which one could supposedly decipher the weather forecast:
The building in 1987
Another sleuth writes:
My first clue was the YOMP graffiti:
According to Wikipedia, yomp is “Royal Marines slang describing a long-distance loaded march carrying full kit. It was popularised by journalistic coverage in 1982 during the Falklands.” This had me searching for the distinctive, “stair-step” shaped building in London and other UK cities — no luck.
Chini has better “luck” with his little yellow circle:
A sleuth in Austin believes he’s seeing his own city:
The view is looking southwest out of a west-facing window located at the southwest corner of the downtown Omni Hotel in Austin, about 10-15 stories up. It’s looking towards one end of the old historic Driskill Hotel. I’m guessing the beagle is blocking a view of the year the Driskill opened (1885, I think). People say that the Driskill, the old Menger Hotel on Alamo Square in San Antonio, and the Alamo itself are among the most haunted places in Texas.
Another guess:
San Francisco, CA — the Millennium Tower? I lived in the tower until 2019, when it was famously sinking, and this looks so much like the view from one of my windows!
Focusing on another tower is the super-sleuth in San Mateo:
Zooming in on Collins House in the VFYW, we can see that the face of the building is designed to look like a tessellation jigsaw puzzle made up of rectangles and squares:
Tessellation puzzles feature tiles that fit together in a repeating pattern without any gaps or overlaps, creating a continuous geometric design. Given the building's unique design and the architectural jigsaw puzzle metaphor, let’s emphasize its tessellation puzzle-ness for the VFYW Reimagined (or should we reject the orthogonal lines entirely? — see the second image):
Or, looking at rectangles and squares another way, perhaps we should morph the tower into a three-dimensional tessellation cube:
Back to the window hunt, here’s another bid for SF: “I’m an artist, and that’s the way the light looks in San Francisco.” From the super-sleuth in San Fran:
My first thought was that maybe we are back in Austin this week? I see new construction with lots of glass and steel, lots of patios and rooftop space for a location blessed with sun, some buildings that appear to date from the late Victorian era, and not a cloud in the sky. We are instead in the middle of summer (presuming the photo was taken recently) down below the equator.
Down below it is — or rather, down under:
I’ve never been to Australia, but escaping a Minnesota winter seems awfully good right about now. At least the air temp made it to double-digits today! Small victories matter in this climate.
Another building is identified by this sleuth:
It’s been a long time since I have sent in an entry. I should send more, even when I’m not confident. But today I got lucky thanks to some perhaps generous blurring on your part. There is one very distinct building in the background that almost looks like stairs. In front of it is a building I first mistook for an office for Oakley brand glasses:
The logo is pretty close, but the Oakley headquarters is actually really weird and not like any other building I have come across. More SciFi than anything else, it would feel right at home in an Elon Musk fever dream:
Anyway, Oakley was wrong. But “Oak” was pretty close. A search for the Oak logo turned up a matching image after a couple pages — for Oaks Hotel.
The super-sleuth in Yakima deciphers the view further: “The full word on the building at the left of the photo is ‘Challenger’”:
Our sleuth in Malvern is struggling with all these buildings:
I hate you. You send me an encouraging email, and then post this week’s view with lots of unusual — and identifiable? — architecture, just when my annual year-end analog family transatlantic letter has to get written.
If you’re still scrambling for a last-minute Christmas present, consider a Dish subscription — and spread the VFYW cheer! The $5 monthly subs make a good stocking-stuffer, or you can gift a full year for $50 (and don’t worry, the gift subs don’t auto-renew). Substack lets you craft a custom message, and you can schedule the gift to arrive at any time, e.g. Christmas morning. If you’re already logged into Substack, your credit card info will load automatically, so purchasing a gift is super quick and easy.
So, which Australian city are all these various buildings pointing to? Our super-sleuth in Riverwoods names it, and his solution is my favorite this week:
Hey Chris! So I have a fun “how I found the VFYW” story this week.
I came up short searching a variety of high-rise building descriptions, as well as directly searching Excelsior House — which was only sharing something locally. I tried plugging other cities, but only in the US (at the moment it didn’t occur to me to search all large cities in English-speaking countries, which would have led me right to the city).
Looking around for other clues led me to this graffiti:
I searched “Bonez” and was rewarded with the location. Score! It was exciting to get there so quickly on a random non-obvious clue like graffiti (the other obvious graffiti, “YOMP” was a dead-end).
