(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.)
Wow, I really ran out of time and thought that not nailing the exact window made my chances impossible. So, this is an unbelievably happy surprise. Thank you!
And happy belated #500. While I only occasionally have time to participate, I am an avid reader — and have, for the record, actually entered the contest before from a different email address. It was #322 — close, but no cigar.
Anyway, this is an unexpected thrill. I would love a copy of the VFYW book.
Thank you for all you do to run the contest, produce the column, and support The Weekly Dish. It’s a truly treasured resource for me and so many other fans.
Chuffed! Our super-sleuth in Sagaponack follows up:
I enjoyed the VFYW 500 write-up — lots of great entries. I can imagine getting all those submissions must be like drinking from a firehose.
Pretty much — though not quite as painful as this:
Here’s a followup from Giuseppe, our super-sleuth in Rome:
Last week, Berkeley was so kind as to bring back a rule that, in his words, “was established in contest #343: if Giuseppe indicates a window … and if Giuseppe’s choice disagrees with that of the submitter … go with Giuseppe’s choice.” I am obviously flattered, but lately, for some reason, my window guesses have been spotty at best. Berkeley’s, on the other hand, have been consistently spot-on. Therefore, I am proposing an amended rule that will lead to the right window every time:
If Berkeley’s and my choice agree with the submitter’s, obviously go with mine and Berkeley’s;
If Berkeley’s choice agrees with mine and disagrees with the submitter’s, go with mine and Berkeley’s;
If Berkeley’s choice disagrees with mine and agrees with the submitter’s, go with Berkeley’s;
If Berkeley’s choice disagrees with mine, which in turn disagrees with the submitter’s, go with Berkeley’s;
If Berkeley’s choice disagrees with mine and mine agrees with the submitter’s, ask Berkeley if he is sure; if he is, then by all means go with Berkeley’s.
Here’s Sagaponack again:
I really appreciate that you include my fun facts and murals every week, especially since you are collating so much material, but the Amman mural got truncated and I really liked the way it came out:
Hope you enjoy these murals; they’re a lot of fun to work on. For those of us who don’t have artistic talent, the AI allows us vicarious creativity.
Yet another followup comes from the VFYW chef:
I forgot the 500th celebration last week, but my favorite moment from the contest was when you sent me the following email, after I had made a few food submissions:
Dish Staff <contest@andrewsullivan.com> Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 6:56 PM Thanks Bill! Love the idea of you becoming the food sleuth (like the Berkeley guy being the movie sleuth). Happy Friday to you and yours, Chris
I have tried to live up to this ever since.
He has, and then some. Our super-sleuth in Brookline writes:
Belated congrats on the 500th, since my discombobulated travel brain forgot to mention this mirthful milestone last week. I enjoyed reading the reminisces of my fellow sleuths and reflecting on the place of the contest in our weekly routines. For me, the VFYW has been a comforting constant across so much personal and professional upheaval in this middle phase of my life. In many ways, I’m surprised — and perhaps more than anything relieved — that early 50s me still enjoys the contest as much as mid 30s me who submitted my first guess (for a Brookline view, no less!) back in September 2010.
So thanks as always for providing this sometimes frustrating, often humbling, always engrossing weekend fixture for so many stubborn, detail-obsessed weirdos like me.
I remember that 2010 contest well, since it elicited the largest number of emails in VFYW history: about 600, and only a few dozen guesses were not Brookline. That contest was also memorable because so many people had first-hand experiences of the apartment building. For example:
My girlfriend used to live in the same complex (1215 Beacon), so I recognized this as soon as I saw it. On our third date, a little over three years ago, we had our first hug on the sidewalk right outside the gate when I dropped her off after seeing a movie. Is that enough to make us the winners this week?
It wasn’t. Below was the winning entry — from a sleuth who had nearly won a difficult contest, in Lausanne:
I won’t be the first of the hundreds who send an entry to you, and I didn’t ask my girlfriend to marry me right at St. Paul’s MBTA stop or anything. I got Lausanne correct because I lived there. I got this week’s location out of luck, because while I never lived in Boston, one week ago I moved there. After four years of long-distance relationship that began in Beirut, then variously involving Québec, Geneva, Lausanne, New Haven, and Boston, my girlfriend and I are finally living in the same place. “Même maison” [“same home”] has been our mantra for a long time, even though it has come at some career costs. I’d been visiting her on some weekends over the past year, and she lived about four blocks from here. We passed it a handful of times.
On to this week’s view, one sleuth guesses simply, “San Antonio, Texas, USA.” Getting much closer is our super-sleuth in Riverwoods:
This view looks so familiar. Seoul, South Korea?
Nope, but right region. Here’s the Intrepid Couch Traveler:
A more appropriate city for VFYW #501 I can scarcely fathom. It’s home to the most premium Levi’s jeans in Christendom, and when visiting this city, the submitter apparently had a medical emergency, I imagine after trying on a pair of 1937 “Japan” 501 jeans. Perhaps they shrank-to-fit just a little too much.
I had an eerily similar experience myself recently:
So, for the next 500 weeks, every VFYW will now have an intimate connection with the contest number — a weekly Easter Egg that all the super-sleuths must uncover to show their true mettle.
Yes please! Our super-sleuth in Oakland names the right country:
I expect to be buried in work this week, but based on the VFYW posted on the main Dish column (before I get the “official” version for #501), I’ll take a WAG that it’s Tokyo, Japan.I think I can make out some Japanese characters on some of the buildings, and then there’s the urban density and the topography. I also recognize what might be the Tokyo observation tower on the horizon near the right edge of the photo.
Then again, I could be dead wrong. ;-)
Not dead wrong, just mostly wrong. Berkeley initially thought Tokyo:
In the context of The Contest, Japan has long held a special place in my heart. Ever since March 2013, when I scored my copy of The Book on my 8th entry: an apartment window in Kagoshima (contest #143).
To be honest, #143 wasn’t one of the difficult views, containing as it did a decapitated volcano, Japanese-coded buildings, and a sign in kanji. This week’s view shares some of those characteristics, although the absence of a volcano made it a lot harder to find. And the bit of kanji script that’s legible this week just translates to “millennium”, which led me nowhere.
My starting assumption — that this time the place just had to be in Tokyo — didn’t help either. I mean come on! Five views in Japan over 16 years of the contest and never a whiff of the country’s most important city?
I nearly used a Tokyo view this week, but it was far too easy to guess. (The next contest view is also from a very popular city we haven’t featured yet.)
A previous winner guesses another city:
I instinctively thought Japan, then Tokyo, but then I thought Tokyo has more high-rise density. The skyline seems more Osaka, with a flat terrain and Kawasaki-style low-rise houses with flat brown/red roofs. I may well be wrong, but the view seems to include a school, possibly Tamagawa Elementary School:
I have been on work matters to Japan on a number of occasions, but primarily Tokyo. What limited places I have visited left me bewildered as to culture and the food, but bewildered in a positive and breathtaking way. Japan is quite unlike any country I have ever visited.
P.S. I forgot to congratulate you on reaching the 500 milestone. It’s a great competition — which actually makes me think. As do the articles, which is the main reason to subscribe.
You can join him here, for $6/month or $60/year. Another Osaka entry comes from our super-sleuth in Eagle Rock:
Brutal. This breaks my years-long streak of finding the building. The internet is convinced this view is from Osaka. Or Chitose, Kawasaki City. I can’t prove either.
The internet also thinks the yellow sign with the kanji was painted over a few years ago. But I can’t find the gray one either, which should still be there.
So a proximity guess: Nishi Ward, Osaka, Japan.
I’m so curious how Chini — or anyone else for that matter — will nail this.
Chini’s ways are always mysterious; every week he merely sends two photos — one of the window circled up-close, and one from afar:
Our Burner super-sleuth in Seattle names the right city:
As I mentioned in my comment last week about the 500th window, joy and frustration are an integral part of this endeavor. This window is no exception.
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