Inspired from the View from My Kid’s Dorm Room thread.
Wherever I live, the place I spend the most time is next to the window with the best view. Right now, there isn’t much of one, just an enclosed patio/garden area. Since I’m not a great gardener, it isn’t particularly inspirational but it’s better than my worst view ever, which I’ll explain later. I’m OK with it for now but look forward to something nicer some day.
The worst view I had was when I first lived at the YWCA, where they have rooms you could rent by the month. I lived three stories above the alley with nothing to see (unless I leaned out the window) but an expanse of a pinkish-red granite wall belonging to the ritzy hotel next door. I moved a month or so later, however, to another room that looked out on First Hill. It was a vast improvement at the time.
The best is probably where we are now. I look out any of the windows on the north face of the house and I see the house across the street – built in 1775, and absolutely beautiful.
I guess the worst was the condo we used to own. The view was…a couple dozen condos exactly like ours.
Best view, from my current apartment. Worst view, from…
My current apartment.
There is a beautiful historic building outside my window. Unique construction, ivy-covered, surrounded by trees. In the fall the trees would bathe my apartment with gorgeous golden light. I loved looking out while I was in the shower.
Then a couple of years ago, a complete jerk bought the place. He said he was going to move the place back 100 feet and build a high-rise apartment building there. It was clear that he wanted to knock the old place down. The community rose up in force against him. In retaliation, he pretty much denuded the whole property. Now I look out at a big bunch of ugly.
The court ordered him to replace the trees, but two summers have gone by and there’s nothing yet. And now I’ve heard that another developer wants to build there. My view over the next few years might just be a big construction site, followed by a brick wall.
The best was my childhood bedroom–it looked out on a glorious dogwood tree in the spring, foliage in the fall, little snow-covered hills in the winter.
Worst was probably my place in DC – it looked out over the Dumpster and occasional gunplay.
The worst was when I lived off Ponce in Atlanta. My living room looked out over some railroad tracks, onto an area where crack addicts and homeless folks congregated to fight, have sex, piss, crap - you get the idea.
I lived in family housing at UC Santa Cruz when I was in graduate school. It was a two-story townhouse with a full length balcony that looked out over this. Nice place.
Worst view was probably my first apartment in Sacramento. It looked out over the parking lot towards the backside of Pac Bell building.
The house we live in now has a full view of the southern Sierra Nevada but the haze can get so thick in the summer that we can only actually see it a couple of times a week. But in the winter, just after a rain, the mountains look so close you can touch them.
My first apartment in Beirut was terrible, but it had an awesome view. It was on the top floor of a student-slum type building near the American Univesity of Beirut, and was tall enough that I could see all the way down over the city to the Mediterranean. I will never have a view like that again.
In the house where I grew up, the view in the backyard was just the freeway, to the west. Personally, I liked it. A lot of “action” to be seen. But, traditionally one would consider it a bad view.
Just last week they erected a wall, after all these years. I don’t think I like the wall as much as I liked the freeway. But then again, I don’t live there anymore.
Best:
I worked in Piceance Creek, Colorado, living in a “Mancamp” type situation (drilling rig with living quarters), we were 19 miles outside of Rifle and pretty high up.
Worst:
I had a garage apartment near the downtown Police station in Houston, Texas. My living room window had a lovely view of an old, beat up driveway and my bedroom window overlooked a motorcycle junk-yard.
Where I grew up was the best - we had a view 30 miles to the west with Pittsburgh a smudge on the horizon. The south view was overlooking a dairy farm in the valley below.
The worst has been pretty much anywhere I’ve lived in Denver. Just suburban houses on all sides.
I can see the Olympic Mountains in Washington State from my bedroom window. I’m putting that on my resume when I apply to foreign affair jobs in the future.
The worst was a view of a parking lot, but at least I was on the 10th floor and could lay on my bed and see nothing but the sky. Actually, that was a pretty nice view. And no need to obsessively close the blinds before changing, either.
I lived in Naples and had a beautiful view of the Gulf of Mexico. I lived in Manhattan, and I worked for a hotel company and while I was working on helping them open some hotels in New York City, I lived for 8 months there and had a great view of Times Square.
My view for the last 15 years has been the ground facing a brick wall four feet away. I live in a garden flat now
Mine have all been pretty average. Street in front, grass and a fence in the back, nothing special. But I’ve got a nomination for worst. There’s an apartment complex near my house that is set up such that one side of it can’t be more then 50-100 feet from a set of rails (this is actually in a nice neighborhood, so despite that, they are probably very nice inside and probably rent for 8-900 month. Anyways, about 6 or 7 years ago I noticed I-beams going up along the tracks, it was pretty clear they were in the process of putting up a sound barrier for the train. The beams went up, I felt happy for the people who have been subjected to that noise and vibration for years. The beams just sat there for a few years, then, finally, they put the wall up…unpainted concrete block. Can’t imagine waking up every morning to that. Ugh.
Let’s see if this works
Based on how long they went without doing anything, I wonder if they ran out of money. I would have assumed that those panels you see would be cheaper. Maybe not.
Best: toss-up between my current home (condo in a condo develoment, but I’ve got a copse behind me which gives me lots of privacy from spring through fall) and the dorms of my freshman and sophomore year of college (overlooked a large field which was popular with the girls for sunbathing).
Worst: the apartment I lived in most of my senior year of college (overlooked the loading dock of a grocery store – whee!).
I currently have a view of the Phoenix Park in Dublin from my 2nd storey balcony. The birds and the leaves are quite beautiful. Worst view was of a dreary Dublin street in college.
