(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.)
A quick mea culpa on last week’s contest: While editing, I accidentally conflated the municipality of Westmount with the school of Westmount. The Kingston submitter explains:
Slight error: you have me writing, “The school was the symbol of Anglo wealth and privilege.” Although an unexploded bomb was discovered in a mailbox close to the school and eventually detonated in an empty lot across from it, Westmount High was never targeted during any of the troubles. Westmount is a municipality within the greater Montreal Urban Community. It is the municipality in general that was the symbol of Anglo wealth and privilege. Back then, sure, we were considered the snobby rich kids, but now, most of the 1%-ers send their children to private schools.
I was very impressed with the success of the sleuths who solved this one. I would have been lost. It makes me think I should return my Super-Sleuth decoder ring. I did not realise how important the blue fire hydrant would be, nor was I aware of its purpose. I did not even know that a tunnel runs under the school grounds, as there are no metro stations in Westmount. But I looked it up and the Green Line runs right through there.
Another followup:
I suspect a few sleuths will write you about this omission: Leonard Cohen. Cohen grew up in Westmount and also attended Westmount High School. Throughout his life, he maintained a connection to his Westmount synagogue, Shaar Hashomayim, which is the oldest Ashkenazi synagogue in Canada. His great-grandfather served as the synagogue’s president from 1896-1901 and 1907-1914. His final album, You Want it Darker, featured the choir and cantor from the synagogue.
Most famously, his song “Suzanne” is filled with references to Montreal. For example, this is the “lady of the harbor” he sings about:
The Suzanne of the song is Suzanne Verdal, a dancer who was married to a Montreal sculptor Armand Vaillancourt. According to Verdal, she and Cohen drank a lot of tea and ate mandarin oranges while taking in the view of the St. Lawrence River during the summer of 1965. While Cohen was famous for being a ladies’ man, Verdal insisted they were just friends.
From the super-sleuth in Augusta, GA:
As usual, last week’s entries left me amazed at the eye for detail that some sleuths possess. I didn’t even notice that blue smudge in the background, and never would have pinned it as a fire hydrant. Magnifique! This week’s view will probably mislead a few people at first (as it did me), since the amount of foliage obscures what an industrial sort of a place it is, but I bet a lot of people will get there in the end.
Only 23 did, actually. The Berkeley super-champ narrates the foliage-filled scene:
When this photo appeared on Friday morning, I thought, “Chris, don’t make me a liar. I said you’d never drop us in a place only a resident could recognize and then you turn and do this to us!” (My next thought was, “Man! It’ll break my streak! I was hoping for an easy one after Westmount High!”)
There was so little here for a non-local to go on: three churches, one with twin steeples, but none offering distinctive search terms. Hills densely covered in mostly-non-evergreen forest. Very generic non-urbanized architecture that could be almost anywhere but that I figured would probably turn out to be an established older town in the eastern U.S. because of the appearance of the hillside (unless it was Canada, although probably not Canada, because we were just there). A structure up on a ridge wanted to be a castle, but it’s obviously too modern to be a castle.
Most of my Friday search time was spent floundering. But in the words of Commander Taggart:
Our UWS super-sleuth from NYC takes a stab at the right country:
I haven’t got a clue. More accurately, I can’t do anything with the clues I do have: multiple churches, some kind of mountain-top tower, and about three million trees. Germany is my uninformed guess.
To distract from my third week in a row of uninspired guesses, I have a story related to last week’s View. I’ve spent enough time on consulting projects in Canada to warrant years of Canadian work permits. Mostly in Toronto and Ottawa, but Montreal also. However, my favorite Montreal story starts in Queens, NYC, where I grew up. It’s 1979 or 1980, and my hockey-fanatic college boyfriend thought it would be fun if I — a person with zero knowledge of hockey, and even less interest — were to memorize the roster of the Montreal Canadiens. Do I have to add that we were smoking weed at the time?
So it’s a list of 20 guys, give or take. Two of them were Guys with a capital G. French names added to the challenge. Let’s just say it took a while. But in the end, I was able to recite the full roster. Woohoo!
Fast-forward 30 years to a dinner with a few of my long-time Canadian clients. The talk turns to hockey, as it is wont to do. For lack of anything else to contribute, I offer my story. They immediately want to know: Do I remember any of the names? I manage to drag Guy Lafleur out of my long-term memory. OMG, Guy Lafleur is their hero. They are thrilled! I can see them looking at me in an entirely new light ... I can actually feel our relationship deepening, crazy as that sounds.
Later in that project, we have a company event for 100 people at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. I get to see Guy Lafleur memorabilia on display. I also get a picture of myself touching the Stanley Cup — an incident that causes my husband (not the college boyfriend, but also a rabid hockey fan) deep distress because it is so wasted on me. Luckily, he visits the Hall of Fame a few years later, and peace is restored in our marriage.
By the way, I’m glad to see more call-backs to previous Views — sometimes, that might be all a sleuth can contribute in a given week. It doesn’t seem possible, but the VFYW seems to continuously improve. Kudos to you, Chris, for all the effort and passion you put into it. And for your considerable organizing, curating, and writing talents!
I’m chuffed! Here’s the super-sleuth in DC:
When I first glanced at the contest photo, my gut reaction was that it was taken in Germany. But I quickly ruled out that country because you used a Germany photo for VFYW just a few weeks ago (Heidelberg on May 19), and I really didn’t think you’d go back to the same (non-U.S.) country so soon. Or would you … ?
I wouldn’t. But since my niece and brother just landed in Germany, I will post another family pic in the contest:
The ski-nerd sleuth quotes me from last week:
“During the past week I’ve actually been on Zillow scouting out plots of land in Colorado, specifically Crestone.” Way cool. My 14-year-old daughter is at ski camp at Copper Mountain this week and next:
Way cooler. Cooler still is this encouraging note from a sleuth:
We have a family ranch north of Crestone astride Major Creek. Our caretakers are current and former employees of Valley View Hot Springs. I simply want to introduce myself and extend an offer of support from a semi-local.
And here’s a pic of the Great Sand Dunes from Liberty Road south of Crestone:
Swoon. Another note about Crestone comes from our CO/NJ super-sleuth:
I just got back from Breckenridge yesterday. A great trip. After the rains, we had bluebird days for the second half of our stay. My kids and I have a summer tradition of climbing 14ers each time we go. This trip we bagged Mts. Shavano and Tabeguache, in the Sawatch Range. From the top of Tabeguache, we could see your future home, Crestone, at the base of the Sangre de Cristos, behind Mt. Shavano — which we had climbed en route to Tabeguache, and which we would have to climb again on the way back:
Here’s a picture of the three of us, looking southwest, toward the San Juan Mountains:
“Chris in Crestone near the Sangre de Cristos” has a nice ring to it. Thanks for all the encouragement! I got more of it talking with my uncle this week during a mini family reunion at my cousin’s hangar near Grand Rapids, Michigan. (My girlfriend and I were in the area for the Electric Forest music festival.) My uncle has his own Airstream —named “Buff,” because he’s a nudist — and he just installed a premium solar-power system, which I’m going to replicate in Astrid. We’re also both interested in getting Starlink, enabling me to Dish from anywhere in the country without Internet worries.
My current idea for Crestone is to buy a wooded plot of land where Astrid can perch, totally self-sufficient with solar and Starlink, and then build a carport with a deck extension. I worked as a carpenter’s assistant the summer before college and would love to learn the trade myself. Crestone could be the perfect retreat while Andrew’s up in Cape Cod during the summer.
Anyway, here’s a photo of my cousin’s hangar with five Airstreams — mine, my uncle’s, his son’s and two family friends’:
L to R: “Stella,” a unnamed gutted Airstream, “The Purple Twinkie,” “Astrid,” “Buff”
Back to the guesses for this week, this sleuth gets the right country:
Cumberland, Maryland, USA? Or some other town in Appalachia that has more churches than people?
Here’s Chini, dropping several clues:
“They're killing time, filling out forms, standing in line…so the graduations hang on the wall, but they never really helped us at all…No they never taught us what was real…iron and coke…chromium steel” - Billy Joel
There are many ways to solve views. Here’s one that worked this week:
3:02 PM: accidentally mis-click on a random spot while opening a map 3:03 PM: “hey, this actually looks pretty good; my cousins’ hometown is a few miles north, I should go check it out…” 3:04 PM: “na, can’t be, that’d be too random” 3:05 PM: looks at cousins’ hometown … laughs out loud 3:06 PM: laughs a lot harder …
So if repeating those miraculous steps somehow doesn’t work for you, here’s a more traditional clue that might help. Like Verona, Italy, our location this week features an iconic rivalry — not between the Montagues and the Capulets, but in true American fashion, between Freedom and Liberty …
Another sleuth names the right state:
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