460 – The View from The View, or: the Baobab Perspective

“This is a scan of the cocktail napkin for The View, the rotating restaurant/cocktail lounge at the top of the Times Square Marriott,” says Liam Flanagan. The 360-degree map on this napkin, oriented with west on top (shouldn’t that be ‘occidented’ then?), provides the names of some of the buildings visible from that vantage point.

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Most prominent is the Viacom Building, due south, towards the west adjoined by the Penn Plaza, McGraw-Hill (1931), and both Manhattan Plaza towers.

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Almost due west is the AT&T Building, followed by the World Wide Plaza and the Morgan Stanley towers. The western portion of the horizon also shows the Hudson river, and the New Jersey shoreline.

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Due north is shared by the Carnegie Tower and the City Spire. North to east are the Equitable Center, the (doubtlessly soon to be renamed) Lehman Brothers Building, the Time-Life Building, the Rockefeller Center, the 1972 McGraw-Hill Building and the GE Building with its observation deck, called Top of the Rock. The former GE Building is now Columbia University.

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Almost due east is the JP Stevens Tower, just a bit further the JP Morgan Chase Building. Continuing south are the Bertelsman, MetLife and Chrysler buildings, followed by the Chanin, Bank of America and Conde Nast towers. Rounding out the view are the uber-iconic Empire State Building and the Met Life Tower.

The view from The View reminded me of a drawing with a similar perspective, from Le Petit Prince: this stark image of which the author says, “[p]erhaps you will ask me, Why are there no other drawing in this book as magnificent and impressive as this drawing of the baobabs? The reply is simple. I have tried. But with the others I have not been successful. When I made the drawing of the baobabs I was carried beyond myself by the inspiring force of urgent necessity.”

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This image is, as you will agree, a clear warning of the grave dangers of baobab infestation. A warning taken to heart by New Yorkers, cleverly building skyscrapers where these vicious trees would otherwise have sprung up.

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