THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING AND ME

You may not know this, 

but the Empire State Building and me? 

We've got a thang goin' on. 

 We're tight.

Thick as thieves.
Besties.

For 28 years, we saw each other on an almost-daily basis.
We were close......separated by eight short city blocks,
but the wide open view through my office windows
made us feel much closer. 

Pre-blogging bad photo from my office, but I had to make a point 😉

Pre-blogging bad photo #2 from my office 😕

I got to know it well over the years,

mostly through those office windows,
but often, we connected outside at street level,
where I looked up to it in awe.

Sometimes, our relationship was long-distance,
from across the Hudson river.

 

Whenever a flight back home took me over NYC,
the Empire State Buidling was there to greet me from the ground below. 

 Once, I saw it from the inside out 
up there on its 86th floor observation deck,
getting to see all of New York City through its eyes. 

I witnessed its many different moods.......
clear and strong on sunny days.......
dark and shrouded by rain clouds.......
soft and filtered in blizzard-like conditions....... 
and completely invisible on foggy days. 

I'll never forget seeing at its very worst.......
 against a backdrop of thick smoke on 9/11.
It loomed larger than ever that day.  
I kept looking out my windows, 
to make sure it was still there.

I saw it decked out in a multitude of colorful lights........
Green and red for Christmas.......
Blue and white for Hanukkah.......
Rainbow for pride week.......
The various colors of NY's sports teams.......
Orange, white and green for St. Patrick's day.......
Pink for breast cancer awareness month.......
Red, white and blue  when it felt patriotic.......
Green for earth day. 

Pre-blogging bad photo #3 from my office 😖

And, I saw it go completely dark in times of tragedy
a few too many times.

Although we're not as close as we used to be,
we still keep in touch.
On my frequent jaunts into the city, 
it will often peer at me from around a corner,
or peek out at me from behind a building.
The Empire State Building is one of those friends that 
no matter how long we've gone without seeing each other,
it feels like no time has gone by.......
and we pick up right where we left off. 

LINKING WITH:
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Our World Tuesday
Through My Lens  
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