Views On Views

We all know New Yorkers are often labeled as rude, self-absorbed pricks to those who don’t reside in the five boroughs. I’m guessing this has something to do with HBO’s inaccurate representation of how us city folk interact with one another. But mostly, I am convinced it’s due to interlopers’ lack of sidewalk etiquette. Hello, it’s like traffic: keep right, pull over if you need to come to a full stop, rubbernecking is frowned upon, it’s just not that hard. If you read my commuting post, you can imagine the fury additional obstacles on our daily commute might ignite. A pack of meandering tourists walking five abreast down Amsterdam just doesn’t fly.

Nonetheless, that stereotype has taken hold and is, I think, a little off base. People in New York are just absorbed in their own daily activities, trying to get from point A to point B. You suburbanites don’t lob pleasantries at one another from your sensible, fuel-efficient SUV’s as you’re sitting in traffic. Maybe aliens to the city should pretend the side walk is I-95 and act accordingly. Everyone except those visiting from Massachusetts, you guys should just take an Uber.

In my experience, New Yorkers are pretty affable people, save a few outliers and extenuating circumstances. We just keep to ourselves, typically existing unconcerned with the goings-on of those around us. Making eye contact as you walk by someone isn’t the norm, if it was we’d all be in a staring contest with about 3483943 people a day. It’s just not practical. Also, such activity invites heavier forms of interpersonal interaction (smiling, and, god forbid, talking), which we just don’t have time for.

These rules of engagement get a little fuzzy, however, the further you get from street level. I’m not talking about how we interact with those in our dime-sized living quarters or the intermingling with those that live across the hall or downstairs. In a city with 1400 people per square block separated by just the width of a street or avenue, if you glance out the window you realize you’re still surrounded. So, what happens as one’s elevation rises?

Well, that depends. Take my apartment, for example. Here at the Men’s Grill (still trying to remember which of my friends came up with that endearing name for my plaid themed abode), despite its shortcomings – which are many – we have a great selection of windows. Built in 1901, there may not be a right angle in the place, but the windows are huge (so huge I worry one bad step after too many pinots and I’ll be a pancake outside Land Thai and the Dead Poet). Situated on the top floor, or penthouse if you will, of a fifth-floor walkup, my humble abode gets plenty of natural light, and, thus, provides ample opportunity to witness the behavioral phenomenon I’m talking about.

My office window takes the cake for opportunities for voyeuristic anthropological study as it is the furthest thing from “up to code” (if there’s even a safety code for windows) and provides a panoramic view of Amsterdam Avenue and the apartments across the street. One quick note: I do not sit and stare out my window all day, just wanted to make that clear. Nonetheless, working from home a few days a week and an exceptionally frigid winter later have provided some interesting viewing material.

First, the same IDGAF what anyone else is doing attitude that exists on the pavement is exhibited five floors up on a level you have to see to believe. Nobody cares to shut a curtain or blind in any circumstance.  There are 16 windows in my direct line of sight if I glance outside and at any given time during the day I’m likely to see at least one naked person. My friend a floor down across the way does her makeup buck naked at the window like she’s in her own private movie trailer. I’m not sure if she knows she’s on display or wants to be, but girl is brave.

I mean I get it, you’re running around your apartment trying to take a shower, find clothes, put make up on, maybe you breeze by the window and forget to put the shade down… breeze by being the operative part of that sentence. Then again, maybe you don’t care everyone on Amsterdam and across the way can see you. Is that normal? Maybe so given her downstairs neighbor enjoys a full moon every night of the week while catching some z’s, playing video games, etc. Does no one put the shade down?

After I converted the third room to my office over a year ago and began to witness the apparent nudists across the way, I immediately thought it was me. Do I look out the window too much? Is there such thing as looking out one’s window too much? Am I insane? And that is when I noticed not one, but two different apartments with binoculars hanging from their window locks. As spring turned to summer those two windows became sites of daily surveillance. The inhabitants, typically more than one, sit passing the binoculars back and forth, sometimes very close to the edge of the window sill I might add, scanning the buildings opposite theirs and the ground below. If I look out the window too much these people have a clinical problem.

Evidently, it’s the wild west up here and there are no rules. Seemed fine to me, until I realized I, too, was being watched. Granted I was fully clothed (I hope) when it occurred to me that the group of people, iPhones in hand, were in fact watching me struggle through a Tracy Anderson Mat Workout video. Come on people! Not only that, they were able to see me via the large mirror that sits above my couch. And they were filming it? WTF? Okay, in all seriousness, I must look like an absolute joke doing my leg lifts braced against a chair as Tracy Anderson squawks orders from my TV – but videoing? What was I to do?

Now, you may be thinking – it’s all in your head, Brynn. Surely, they noticed you just passing by and had a good laugh at your 3 lb. weights and went on with their day. Nope. The second night in a row I noticed I was performing for a crowd, I waved. They waved back. It was hilarious and embarrassing, and I wanted to run screaming to the suburbs. Dramatic, maybe. Warranted, eh probably not. Either way those staid New Yorkers minding their own business on the street are nosy AF. The third night in a row I had had it. I didn’t even check to see who might be settling in to watch my hideous attempts at toning, and I took the mirror behind the couch off the wall before my workout. They certainly won that battle. Creeps.

After writing this post, it seems I may be overreacting a bit. Maybe this is the price we pay to live in New York City; though I thought the uneven floors, house-pests big and small, and radiator symphony was tax enough. Guess not. Regardless, can we all just agree rubbernecking a stranger while they attempt to workout in their home is not cool? Okay good. Nudity’s fine, whatever, live and let live.

A few additional thoughts on this subject and then we’re done… how do people live with the windows wide open at the height of New York City summer and not sweat to death? The windows across the way, like my office window, don’t have screens. Do people worry about flyers of all genres interloping when their windows are wide open? We do have a mosquito issue on the Upper West Side, that seems like a terrible idea… just saying. And lastly, shout out to my buddy directly across Amsterdam who I helped break into his front door last year while he was drunk – your puppy is getting so big!