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In his new book, The City Out My Window, architect and illustrator Matteo Pericoli zooms in from the city-wide scope of his monumental Manhattan Unfurled to offer the private windowscapes of an eclectic lineup of notable New Yorkers. Award-winning architect Paul Goldberger introduces this austere and entrancing collection: "What is less in our control than a city view? We can choose not to live somewhere, but that is about as far as most of us can go in determining what we look at from our windows. ... But once you accept it, it becomes a part of you, and what you see in it tells everything." And as you flip through the pages you'll get a voyeur's view of the at-home (or often, at work-) persepective of Roger Angell, Ed Koch, Graydon Carter, Tom Wolfe, David Byrne, E.L. Doctorow, Junot Diaz, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Oliver Sacks, Tony Kushner, and many more.
Adam Yauch on his Hudson River view: "I don't know how much longer we'll have this view. In New
York City it's only a matter of time before someone builds in front of
you..."
Mario Batali on gazing upon historical Washington Square Park: "[it] is the entire history of mid-twentith-century pop culture... the world as we know it is born here, lives here, will evolve here. It is beauty, it is paradise, it is frenetic and calm."
Gay Talese's on his blurry perch: "While glancing through the fourth-floor studio window of my
brownstone in mid-Manhattan I have at best a murky view of my
neighborhood due to my longtime avoidance of window washers."
And Stephen Colbert on his office view: "Because my studio is directly across from a windowless telecommunications skyscraper whose peak bristles with microwave transmitters, when I think of my view mostly I think about cancer, so I try not to think about it at all."
Recommended for fans of New York: Line by Line and Manhattan Unfurled.
--BTP
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