The fact I have this/these window(s) is somewhat irrelevant as I no longer have a view. You would assume that I always had a view prior, but that would be wrong. You shouldn't be so quick to judgements. It's a relic habit that served us well as cavemen, but is less useful in today's pre-post-future environment. My view was created just a couple of years ago when the former United States Mission to the United Nations was deconstructed. I say deconstructed because a virtual battalion of construction workers, in this case "deconstruction" workers, took it apart beam by beam.
The old US Mission was a 50's creation that best resembled the tweed covering a speaker from the same era. Concrete lattice work had its day. That day was February 3, 1952 when the plans for the US Mission were approved. No other plans were approved that day, which is why you don't see more concrete lattice work. Glass exteriors have had many days from the looks of it.
I didn't miss the old Mission. I'm not sure there was anyone who did. If you did, could you please send your name, address and your latest vision test to:
Olde US Mission
254 E. 21st Street Rm. 1701B
New York, NY 10023
For the rest of us, the empty space wrapped in a footing of blue plywood was more interesting.
And for me the view of the United Nations General Assembly Building with its skewed dome and the skyline of Long Island city across the East River was a site to behold. Sunlight, previously foreign to my office like light to the last item of groceries at the bottom of a brown paper bag, was welcomed with squinted eyes. It took about three weeks to realize my office was fitted with blinds and another four days to learn how to operate them. Like a caveman manipulating fire, I tamed the early morning glare and basked in the glory, while also finding various things in the corners of my office that were previously invisible in the dank glow of the two pairs of fluorescent tubes that dissect the ceiling.
But that is all nostalgia now. After enduring the initial drilling and clamour that accompanies the pouring of a reinforced foundation, I watched as the structure grew slowly to eye level before eclipsing the General Assembly and the four skyscrapers across the river. I returned from a trip to Nairobi this week to find the US Mission had taken my external view and now my internal view as well as darkness set in like a Scandinavian winter.
All this and yet I have no neighbours. I can't look across into the office of some industrious Foreign Service Officer to see him or her tapping away at his or her computer or pointing to a map or anything delegates to the UN must do in their offices. The US Mission has no windows for its first six floors so as to be impervious to a car bombing. It has no windows on any of its floors on the south side or the back. So my view is now of a concrete wall divided into verticle rectangles each with four circular holes where stone plates will someday be fitted resulting a in a gray veneer.
Which brings me to my question: how far do paintballs fly?
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