(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.)
Oh wow, thank you! Two free years of the Dish, please!
A previous winner in Oakland provides “two intriguing detours involving recent contests”:
Regarding contest #483: I often use streetlights as a unique clue to specific cities. In that regard, Kansas City has something special — in common with San Francisco (though in a different part of town from the recent VFYW in KC): the “Path of Gold” triple-torch streetlights on SF’s Market Street, duplicated in the Country Club district of Kansas City:
Regarding contest #485, the UWS super-sleuth wrote:
I just recently read about a trestle in Durham — located less than five minutes by car from our View — that locals refer to as the “Can Opener Bridge.” Apparently a vast number of truck drivers seem not to believe the posted clearance for this opening. Nor do they respond to the many posted warnings for over-height trucks to take an alternate route. There’s a website devoted to showing video clips of the tops of trucks being sheared off as the drivers forge ahead ... I also enjoy the way this site describes the situation so succinctly: “The train trestle prominently featured in all the videos here has earned a reputation for its unrelenting enforcement of the laws of physics.”
I’m old enough to remember the following, from the November 11, 1966 issue of Life magazine(unearthed on Google Books here):
RUMPF! (How’s that for succinct?)
Evidently that overpass (at State St. and Stadium Blvd.) has been rebuilt since those days (with greater clearance?) — but I wonder whether any of the Ann Arbor sleuths remember the old one, or that little Life article. (I went to college in Ann Arbor.)
Here are a couple of period-piece ads from that same issue:
... which brings us full-circle: back to Durham and the cigarette theme of that contest.
On to this week’s view, one of our sleuths in Ann Arbor — known as the “a-maize-ing” one — writes: “[This week’s city] is one of the nine sister cities to Durham, NC, where the VFYW went last week.” Nice.
Here’s our super-sleuth in Warrensburg:
The view this week was pretty challenging, I must admit. I had a hunch we were in the Balkans, but that didn’t help much. I decided to focus on the medieval architecture and started working down lists of historic city centers in various countries, but that, too, was a bust. Finally, after staring at the building in the back for too damn long, I simply typed “houses with eyes” and immediately the right city popped up.
The Burner super-sleuth saw more than eyes:
Greetings from Zipolite, Oaxaca! Something tells me you’ve been here, Chris. If not, it seems like a place that you would love. I grew up in CDMX and had never heard of Zipolite until three years ago, and now unrelated friends have mentioned it multiple times. Here’s one of the windows here:
I thought this week’s contest view was impossible, and it could be any city in Central Europe. I almost gave up without trying. But since I’m on holiday (from retirement?!), I had some time so I took another look.
The biggest “clue” was the red tile building with “Tata” written on the roof:
I’m familiar with Tata, the Indian conglomerate, and this window was definitely nowhere near India. Even though Tata doesn’t own [hotel chain redacted], I landed in [city redacted]. I confirmed the white building and the tall chimney, but I couldn’t find the “Tata” sign.
I couldn’t confirm this clue, however, because it doesn’t actually exist! Turns out the “Tata” clue isn’t letters on the roof, but windows! I’m guessing I won’t be the only person who landed on the contest window through a lucky error.
Our super-sleuth in San Mateo pans out:
This week, the Reimagined is a wider view of the four key clues with which I solved this week’s VFYW, providing enough perspective to easily find the right hotel:
Here’s the previous winner in Oakland again:
Judging by the hillsides in the distance, it appears to be someplace with a Mediterranean climate, and the buildings are too old (and too dense) for California. Somebody is bound to localize the distinctive roof shapes — but meanwhile, to me, this could be anywhere from Portugal to Romania. Then again, it might not be Europe at all!
It’s indeed Europe, and Central Europe to boot. Chini sent his entry just under the wire: “Yay work is over! Let the emergency view hunting commence!” His yellow circle:
Our super-sleuth in Yakima writes:
This was a tricky one. It appears to be an old rundown town in an area with rolling farmland. It struck me as as central European, possibly an area that had seen destruction, such as the former Yugoslavia. I thought for sure the oddly-out-of-place modern roof — on what turned out to be a library, with its pyramidal atrium peak, semicircular eyebrow dormers, and broad metal fascia — would be easy to track down:
But the roof turns out to be only a minor feature of a very large building, thus rarely pictured on the web and impossible to find.
Here’s Giuseppe, our super-sleuth in Rome:
The main clue for me: the hills surrounding the city. Given that we are obviously in Eastern Europe, the distinctive hills covered with cultivated fields were relatively easy to find. However, I needed confirmation, which came in the form of the skylight of the Biblioteca Județeană Astra, here in the foreground:
In the background you can see our window’s hotel.
Our super-sleuth in Riverwoods sees Poland:
Gdansk is a wild guess, but for some reason I feel like I’m correct with Poland.
Sorry for the late entry. I went to Sam Harris’ talk yesterday in downtown Chicago with my college freshman daughter. It was a blast talking with her about all sorts of cool intellectual things.
Another Poland WAG comes from our super-sleuth in Chattanooga:
I have no idea, but I decided it must be Poland for some reason. I looked around towns in the southcentral part of the country where I could find what might be wheat growing in the distance. Then I got distracted by Katowice’s pictures of palm trees and just want that to be the answer. Nothing was matching up otherwise, and I didn’t have time to dig into other countries.
Naming some more is the Intrepid Couch Traveler:
I’m moving in two weeks, so no time to search. Looks like Austro-Hungarian architecture. Say, Romania? Slovenia? Croatia? Am I even in the right continent?
When all is lost, and you need a good place to rest your weary bones after packing like a maniac, nothing beats a good couch … but my dog Henney refuses to share:
Another sleuth picks the right country:
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