June 24th, 2010
Shinjuku
Ginza
Tokyo defines concrete jungle: over 2,000 square kilometers of closely-packed, largely monochrome buildings set amid a tangle of clogged, winding roads, elevated highways, rail lines, and telephone wires. For many who are lost amid the ceaseless forward march of its sidewalks and churning perambulations in the corridors of its vast train stations, cafes perched several stories above the street — often, to further their escapist appeal, sporting French or Italian themes — offer rare opportunities to step back from the city’s omnipresent crowds and inexorable movement.
As much as they are respites from urban intensity, these perches also provide the best means to gain some perspective on the unwieldy metropolis. Their patrons may appear trapped in tiny windows when viewed from the street below, but they offer a scattered audience cheap, upper-balcony tickets to the spectacle of the city — itself snarled, not just in traffic, but anxiety and routine.
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August 6th, 2009
On the roof of Mirador Mansions, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
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December 2nd, 2008
View from an 18th floor bedroom in Sai Ying Pun
View from a 12th floor living room in Prince Edward
View from a condemned third floor tenement in Sham Shui Po
October 23rd, 2007
[Partly translated by Arthur.]
It hits me like a shot of heroin, and I don’t know why.
Light through rain through the bus window, slamming and diving at my reflection, a blur dissolving into the painted world outside. Like in Fallen Angels. I straighten my tank top. Rain droplets wash through and over, sanding away at the winding city, new towers and old blocks, slick line in a window’s light. Open doors hang in black space, naked limbs just visible between pulled blinds. Towers stretch upwards, bodies and minds separated only by concrete, steel, wood, plaster. I stretch in the seat and wipe, cat-like, at the rain droplets. The bus slides, purring, beneath me. I stood huddled beneath the bamboo when it pulled to a halt, the doors slid open and I ran, rain pelting me, swiped my Octopus, and the doors catch.
Caught inside, and I am trying not to think, only to watch, watch and feel. Running along the second story, the people, ants dwarfed by an ever growing hive—the unfinished husks in south Kowloon glower half lit, tower cranes spiked in red so many meters into the storm—give way entirely. I place my hand over my breast and feel myself breathing. The bus comes to a halt, the brakes catch like a whale’s respiration, someone climbs the stairs behind me in combat boots. When I turn around, I can barely catch sight of two, skirts, jeans, spiked hair and rain soaked jackets. Bizarre Wants Awesome Knows. I turn back to the rain. I can feel it even if the air conditioning is washing over me, even if the window glass melts me into the neon gloom. An HSBC sign passes, a solitary white point sliding further and further away. The window lights fade, and I am only staring at my reflection, my own face melting into the rain. The strap of my tank top has slipped from my left shoulder.
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October 7th, 2006
Posted
in
Europe by
Alastair Taylor
October 2nd, 2006
Posted
in
Europe by
Tony Peric
The sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously, both to add to the number of effective eyes on the street and to induce the people in buildings along the street to watch the sidewalks in sufficient numbers. Nobody enjoys sitting on a stoop or looking out a window at an empty street.
– Jane Jacobs, Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Woman at window above Portobello Road, London.
Man staring down towards Cloître de Notre-Dame, Paris.
