The secret life of skyscraper penthouses

The Gathering

I work on the 40th floor of my building (that should narrow it down for you a bit!). My window overlooks much of midtown in two directions. This has given me ample fodder for a post. Here are some of the post topics that were considered and discarded outright: (1) Bird, it's a window, not the open air; (2) What could possibly splatter across half of my window up here?!; (3) Dear wind, be kind today; (4) Stealing bandwidth - it's lonely up here; and (5) Thunder: It really is God bowling a strike. But what really passes the time is gazing across at some of my skyscraper brethren and wondering what's the deal with the top handful of floors in each of them? You know, the ones that ask for a special key in the elevator, when they're even listed on the panel.

The first thing you notice at this altitude is how similar the landscape is to ancient Egypt. First, there's the Chrysler Building, the world's tallest brick structure (break out the champagne!). I always marvel at how buildings like this emerged so quickly on the NY skyline. In the case of the Chrysler building, we're talking four floors a week! But here's one for ya - the Empire State Building was built in TWELVE MONTHS. Think about that the next time you see a prefab Chipotle crawling to its feet in a parking lot near you. Anyway, the building's chrome spire is art deco, which was influenced by the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922. The interior is decorated with Egyptian motifs (such as lotus flowers in full bloom on the elevator doors as well as hieroglyphics). But it's under the building's top floors, shaped like a stepped metal ziggurat, that things get interesting. The floors were first designed for Walter Chrysler's personal use. During prohibition, the Cloud Club took over the space, and opened its doors to invite the power elite into its smokey jazziness. People came up with mad ideas up there, like, hey, let's have a magazine and call it "Life." This was before that other building stole some of the Chrysler's thunder, so people really did feel like they were on top of the world. There was even a mural in the club showing NY as it would look from some perch in the clouds. And then of course the famous photographer Margaret Bourke-White used to crawl onto one of the gargoyles that jutted out 800 feet above the earth to take pictures. I mean, people got crazy up there. Now, they've removed the decor from the club and public observatory to make way for new tenants - who are these people and what do they want with our vantage point?

There's actually a cacophony of pyramidal styles and structures at the top of buildings near my office - who knows why...or what purpose they serve. And let's not forget the Four Seasons Hotel, which at 54 stories has been described as a "gigantic Temple of Dendur."

Then there's 275 Madison Avenue, a 40+ storey, glazed white brick building with a three-storey penthouse just a couple of blocks away (but it all looks close from up here). Called the "shadowless skyscraper" due to its sleek form, its penthouse was actually designed for shadowy executives of Philip Morris, who rode a separate elevator to their very own private greenhouse where they could brainstorm how to sell death to our children (and increasingly, the youth of other nations). But not anymore. Who, then, are the new phantasms hovering over New York as they move through the penthouse corridors? Laypeople like you and I aren't privy to this information.

Nearby is the Sony Building, its post-modern flare at the top in the form of a gigantic, curved cutout space that sometimes lets off a bit of steam. I like to imagine the structure as an endlessly churning amusement park ride for the citizens of the heavens. But underneath it are massive windowpanes covering several floors set apart from the rest of the building. The mounting mystery of these secret spaces is reaching a fevered pitch.

Then I spot another skyscraper, this one just in front of the Sony Building and adorned with a glass pyramid. On one side just below the pyramid, a large slab of the building has somehow been lifted, tilting at an impossible angle. Alas! From my window I can't tell what's inside. I stare at that building endlessly, half expecting that one day, an escape pod will emerge, jettisoned from its depths, possibly carrying the new illuminati to inhabit the structure's upper reaches. I watch in quiet wonder as it careens along the banks of the river Nile, past the brick and stone monuments to the dead, to whatever lies beyond.

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence