Vertical Symmetry

I love a city.
Urbanity, in general.
I live not only in a city, but in the very heart of it, just a light walk from what would be called the downtown core. However, every weekday morning I get in my car and drive out to to the more industrial part of town and spend the rest of the day inside a windowless warehouse. I’m referring to my place of employment.
And when I say “windowless” I mean that it could be noon or midnight outside, and I would not know which. No natural light entereth therein!
On normal weekdays, I live in a world where you tell time according to hunger pains, and other circadian rhythms.
But lately (this past week, and probably the next one as well) I have been assigned to a special project, and I am working in a corner office on the tenth floor of a downtown building.
It is glorious.
I’ve been walking there in the mornings.
I do not miss anything along the way. I just love observing city-life.
Every peering purple-plumed pigeon perched precariously on its proprietary pinnacle… I see it.
And appreciate its urban pigeontry.

I love a skyscraper.
Tall buildings, in general.
I truly marvel over the sheer feat of constructive engineering exactitude that each building represents.
Admittedly, my fascination may be due to my own intrinsic mechanical ignorance. In my own life, anything more complicated than putting bread in the little toaster slot not only boggles my mind, but furthermore, does not get done.
The existence of people like me is the reason we have Yellow Pages.
So… as I walk, I look up at these magnificent buildings.
Each of them is a human miracle, standing in places they ought not to be, yet are.
Monuments of concrete and steel, lined and laced with ductwork and wire. Hydraulic impossibilities silently carrying people from floor to floor. Within is warmth in the dead of winter, and from any of the rooms a person can speak with someone on the other side of the planet.
I look up and I realize that as awesome as the Pyramids of Giza are, those who built them could not have built even the simplest of one of our downtown office buildings.

I am amazed at the vertical symmetry of tall buildings.
As I walk, I notice the vertical points at which buildings in the foreground merge with those in the background. This works best when walking across actual streets [remember to watch for cars] or when rounding corners.
One building will be much closer to you than another, further off. [For example, see the above picture on this blog].
As you look at the vertical edge of the closer building, watch as it merges with the vertical edge of another one that may be blocks away. The space between will get narrower and narrower, until there will be nothing but a thin ribbon of daylight between them. One more step, or sometimes just leaning or adjusting the angle of your head, and the lines will perfectly match up. From top to bottom there is just one single straight edge.
I do this all the time. I have walked right into oncoming traffic because of getting too carried away with it. It becomes a real habit. I am still in search of that one crooked skyscraper, I guess.

Obviously any highrise building is going to be STRAIGHT… ie., it will not be leaning. [Unless of course, it was built by me… in which case you should really quit looking at the thing and just pretty much run like hell!]
But it is the staggering amount of straightness that never ceases to amaze me.
No matter how crooked and hilly the streets are, man are the buildings ever straight!
Try the Vertical Symmetry test yourself sometimes.
It is wild. [Note: Sometimes it helps to wink, to close one eye, I mean… to get a better angle on the phenomenon.]

I tip my Starbucks coffee here to all you engineers out there.
Sweet Lord, you guys are good.

Now, I know what most of you readers are thinking. In fact, I know the exact wording. You’re wanting to tell me:
“Dude, you have got WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON YOUR HANDS!”
But actually, you are wrong.
I have not nearly enough.
I want more.
I would not for one second be bored with ten times more time.

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