City Skylines

I’ve always loved looking at the skylines of big cities. Maybe that’s because I was raised in a little bitty town and always wanted to live among the big, tall buildings. I finally got to live in several big cities soon after college (Dallas, New York City, Toronto, and now Chicago) and their skylines have never failed to entertain me.

Here are some of my favorite skylines:

First of all, there’s San Antonio. I was born there but my family moved to a little bitty town soon after. However, San Antonio was only about 70 miles away and many weekends were spent there as a kid.

Growing up in my little bitty home town in South Texas, the Mary Tyler Moore show was one of my favorite programs. I wanted to live in Minneapolis just like Mary. Minneapolis was a big city and it was also very cold up there. Minneapolis was the opposite of a little bitty town in South Texas and I wanted that.
I lived in Dallas from 1987 to 1997. It’s got a pretty impressive skyline but, good lord, the weather is hot there.
Oh, and my friends and I use to refer to that big building outlined in green neon lights as “Oz”.
I lived in New York in 1997 for a couple of years. I loved New York, but it’s expensive to live there. A slice of pizza and a subway ride will cost you three hundred dollars. There’s absolutely no way Monica and Rachel could have afforded that apartment on their wages. They had sugar daddies for sure.
I lived in Toronto for three years. Toronto is clean, practically crime-free, and the summers last approximately seven hours. Loved it.
And I’ve been in Chicago for over seven years now. It’s been good to me. I have wonderful friends, a nice job, and get to live in a really tall apartment building. Mary Tyler Moore would like it here.
The skyline of Chicago is really going to be impressive when the 150-story Chicago Spire is completed.
However, I love Seattle, needless to say. It’s never hot there which is a big plus. A bigger plus is that Lorraine and all her friends live there. They're all fantastic people.
If the Iwanskis ever have children and move to the suburbs I’ll probably move to Seattle because I’ll never see them again. You know how those suburbs are.
However, on of my favorite skylines is a city you probably wouldn’t think of.
And that is Albany, New York.

Albany, you say??

Yes, Albany, I say. Although I’ve never lived there, I’ve driven though it many times. Since it’s the state capital, there are these utilitarian buildings downtown. Four of them are identical and I love the way they stand there like monoliths on Easter Island all facing the same way.

I'm really captivated by those four buildings downtown. They remind me of something in Communist Russia which makes my heart swell.

Then there’s the Center for the Performing Arts in Albany, also called “The Egg.” It was designed in 1966 and I think it’s the epitome of that modern, retro 1960s type of structure.

Here’s another pic of Albany. Isn’t that the most interesting looking city?

Albany. Skylines.
It just goes to show that you never know where your favorite things will pop up.