Don’t Look Up

This column is a reprint from Unwinnable Monthly #177. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price.

———

Looking at the world and finding it confusing. 

———

There is a rule anyone moving to New York will hear as soon as their feet hit the pavement. When you walk around the city, do not look up at the buildings. It’ll make you look like a tourist. Everyone tells you this. It’s beaten into your head that this, apparently, is the worst thing that could possibly happen – you, in all your infinite New York-ness, might be mistaken for someone who, in fact, does not live in New York. You might be mistaken for someone lesser. Someone only visiting. Someone enjoying the city.

Shut the fuck up.

First off, let me come to the defense of the tourist. When you tell people, “Don’t look up,” you essentially are telling them, “Don’t enjoy where you live.” Which I actually think is part of living here – people, generally who have relocated from somewhere else and live in annoying neighborhoods like Williamsburg or the Lower East Side and pay $4,000 a month for the shittiest one-bedroom apartment you’ve ever seen and only get meals and groceries delivered are obsessed with finding ways to hate New York. They’re always complaining about something – almost always benign and mundane. Like tourists!

New York has a lot of fundamental problems; currently our governor is considering whether or not to ban life-protecting masks in the middle of a pandemic, for example. We’ve also for some reason totally accepted that our public transportation system will forever be bad and broken. But what will never matter – and will never be a problem, no matter how many annoying people who move here to work in social media say otherwise – are the tourists walking slowly on the sidewalk so they can take a picture of the Empire State Building. Grow up! There are way worse people in this city, such as annoying people who move here to work in social media and people who have relocated from somewhere else and live in annoying neighborhoods like Williamsburg or the Lower East Side and pay $4,000 a month for the shittiest one-bedroom apartment you’ve ever seen and only get meals and groceries delivered.

One of the biggest draws of New York – at least for me, though I have to imagine for pretty much anyone else who at one point dreamt of living here before doing so – is the city’s skyline. There is, objectively, none more famous, and arguably, none better. Our skyline tells stories in ways most cities’ don’t. It shows us every day the last 100-plus years of history of New York, architecture, design, art, construction, finance and so on. It changes yearly, morphs and grows as if organically. I’ve lived here less than a year and already it’s changed in visible ways. To not look up – and to suggest others do the same – is to rob people of one of the fundamental draws of living here. It’s telling them to not love our city. To not appreciate it. To not be like the tourists, who are often the only people in New York who look like they’re having any fun. It’s a cynical way to view life and where you live.

When you look up – anywhere, but especially in New York – you always find something new. Every Tuesday, I take the same walk to my night classes and it was only last week that I noticed a cool new comic shop I’d never seen. Or that for one block, right by Katherine Hepburn Garden, you get the most beautiful view of the top of my favorite skyscraper, the Chrysler Building. I missed these things, I assume, because in weeks past I walked around staring at my phone like a loser. We all fall into bad habits from time to time.

But I always try to look up when I can – and every time I do it’s like I’m getting a free trip to the biggest museum on Earth. Also, like, I’m in my thirties man, what the hell do I care if I look like a tourist? When you care about stuff like that, inevitably, you prohibit yourself from enjoying life.

So, without further ado – for tourists and residents alike – here’s my list of five cool buildings in New York you can only enjoy by looking up:

• The GOAT, the Chrysler Building
• The underappreciated gem, the American Radiator Building
• Brooklyn Tower. I don’t care, man. This evil ass lookin’ building goes SO HARD
• I only just noticed the General Electric Building and do not sleep on this thing! The top is beautiful
• I think the Empire State Building is a bit ugly, but I gotta give credit where it’s due

(I’m giving an honorable mention to 111 West 57th Street, because I love its design but since it’s part of Billionaire’s Row, out of principle I can’t fully support it. However, once we take it over and give it back to the people, this will probably replace Brooklyn Tower on my list, which is also ethically compromised but what can ya do? They all kinda are. That’s New York City, baby.)

———

Blake Hester is a New York-based writer focusing on the videogame industry. His work has appeared on Polygon, Vice and Game Informer. He’s also the cohost of the Something Rotten podcast. Keep up with him on Twitter @metallicaisrad.