Escaparse de Nueva York

I’ve been frustrated with observation decks in New York for some time now. There’s about a dozen buildings or structures that used to have public observation decks that are now closed, or used for private space. I’ve managed to get up a few of them, but it’s always been of the unofficial variety: going out a window of an abandoned office in the Williamsburg Savings Bank building, climbing what remains of the rusted stairs in the 1964 World’s Fair towers in Flushing, Queens, and (my favorite) spending a romantic night watching the 4th of July fireworks after climbing the scaffolding to the top of the Prison Martyrs Monument in Ft. Greene Park (slated to be re-opened soon - hence the scaffolding).

There’s also been a couple others I’ve been able to head up to during an event or after a friend has gotten me into the building. But trying to just talk your way in cold is pretty much an exercise in futility. It seems like the city is conspiring to keep you off its heights.

In New York City, one of the top tourist destinations in the world, there’s two public observation decks. While the views are great, both cost way too much, and one regularly has hours-long lines. The pattern for them (and for most touristy observation decks I’ve visited) seems to be to jazz stuff up with a lot of bells and whistles, charge a ton of money, and advertise it as an “experience.” (A good tourist rule of thumb is to skip anything that advertises itself as the “so-and-so experience”). That’s what happened with the Rockefeller Center Observation deck, and it’s what’s currently happening with the under-renovation Empire State Building. Of course they didn’t hesitate to take the first step - raising prices exorbitantly - before actually completing any of the renovations.

Here’s what people want from an observation deck - to be up high, have an unobstructed view of the city, and be able to snap a few pictures. They don’t want $20 souvenir photos of them superimposed in front of the building. They don’t want talking elevators. They don’t want a tzotzke shop the size of Rhode Island to walk through before getting to the deck. Luckily, all that garbage goes out the window in Sao Paulo.

I made it up to half a dozen rooftops when I was in Sao Paulo, and best of all, never paid a dime. I had been up one of the official ones on my previous trip to Sao Paulo, and hit a couple others (in the Edificio Italia and Banespa building) on this trip. These were all in the old downtown, affording only somewhat different views of the city. Luckily, I also got up to a rooftop bar in the Avenida Paulista area a few miles south, affording a gorgeous view of the row of rooftop antennas that is a Sao Paulo skyline landmark. There’s been talk of removing the antennas (which are located among the skyscrapers on Avenida Paulista because the avenue is geographically the highest point in Sao Paulo), and replacing them with one large antenna, similar to the CN Tower or Seattle Space needle, but I personally hope this doesn’t happen. Even thought the antennas are somewhat outdated and not terrible aesthetic, they are an interesting identifying feature of the skyline and entire city. For a town that doesn’t do a great job marketing itself, some kind of unique identity is always a plus.

But the best rooftop surprise was still yet to come…

He is a well-dressed fellow, tall and somewhat balding. Somewhat nervous, he speaks fluent English with a clipped Portuguese accent. He pretty much resembles a successful Brazilian businessman, which he is, running an import-export shop. He does not look like the type of guy who spends his spare time bribing security guards and making his way through shantytowns in order to explore abandoned buildings in downtown Sao Paulo.

Still, this is what Jorge does with much of his spare time. It’s what we are planning to do the night I arrive in Sao Paulo. However, about an hour after I arrive the rain starts, and does not let up. The abandoned mansion we were planning on going has recently been condemned due to water damage - it’s not safe at all in this kind of weather. We’ll have to wait. Jorge tells me the mansion used to belong to a coffee baron a century ago, when this now-rundown part of downtown Sao Paulo had been the ritzy area, known as the Champ Elysees of the city.

Jorge had introduced me to a couple other people in his exploration/architecture group, PreservaSP, including Gabriel and Jose Rodolpho, who would later show me around the town. We were at a posh function at a museum downtown, where I picked up the latest demographic reports on the neighborhoods of Sao Paulo. Unfortunately they were (obviously) in Portuguese, but I still manage to figure out enough to grasp a reasonable social and demographic picture of the area.

I loved the juxtaposition of being at a fancy event, knowing later we were supposed to be exploring old dilapidated buildings. I’ve always gotten along best with the people that embrace all facets of a city. Jorge’s group was mainly an architectural and preservation group, but were always up for a conversation or exploration on anything that had to do with cities. I felt an immediate professional kinship with them as fellow urbanists.

A lot of people I’ve trampsed around cities with have a certain inability to see or respect anything beyond their particular interests. Explorer types don’t see the point in wandering the streets - indeed some have a rather disdainful view of anything that doesn’t involve trespassing, while more highbrow types seem to think that the guts of what actually make a city run are unimportant next to architectural detailing and landscaped parks. People interested in how a city is structured aren’t interested in actually having a conversation with the people who live there, and people interested in the communities and social aspects of a city don’t understand that the physical structure of the city plays a large role in dictating how these develop.

What frustrates me the most are people who think the only areas in an entire city worth visiting are populated (or about to be populated) by people like themselves, or worse, don’t even really realize that there’s dozens of neighborhoods and millions of people for whom their life and neighborhood is completely irrelevant. I understand that everyone has different abilities and limits of what they feel comfortable with, and that not everyone is going to be able or willing to walk for hours in unfamiliar areas, or climb bridges in the middle of the night, or strike up random conversations with the Ecuadorian guy next to you at the lunch counter. But I’ve always found it hard to respect people that don’t even show an interest in parts of the city that are outside their zone of familiarity, or even worse, think that they have a complete knowledge of the entire city based on the narrow part they do know well.

That’s why it was so rewarding to spend time with the folks I met in Sao Paulo. I spent several days conversing, exploring, and debating pretty much all aspects of Sao Paulo. And I also got to do a slight bit of benign trespassing - including the aforementioned Sugar Mansion…