The view from my window on the thirty-seventh floor is speckled with the lights that shine from the tall buildings and the bustling streets below.

At the center is a tall building that rises above the dark rooftops of the smaller buildings and seems to be reaching for the sky, splitting the view into two parts. This building has a tiny footprint, yet the way it rises from the streets below makes it look like an iconic pencil tower. The tessellated lights from the windows of this building keep flickering from one side to another. The windows and metal facade reflect the blue neon light emitted from the signboards on the street below. A few of the lower floors are under construction. These floors are lit up for the workers to keep moving in and out, even at this late hour. From time to time, silhouettes of people come close to the windows and disappear like horses on a carousel.

The roads line up neatly to form a grid below the tall building. The 9th Avenue on the left is lit up like a carnival adorned with streetlights and well-illuminated storefronts Sometimes, a pack of cars drives up to the crosswalk and patiently wait for the lights to turn green like a mundane routine.

Behind the tall building, more skyscrapers fill the skyline growing smaller and smaller into the vanishing point, where they disappear over the horizon. The night sky above this skyline is filled with white clouds that seem to have been awakened by the lights from the city below.

Article written as a part of Proseminar Fall 2021 Pratt MSUD