This lack of skyline thing has been nagging at me, like a splinter in mind.
I see mountains every morning on the train to work. Some days they look beautiful, majestic. Others they look menacing, threatening. And other days, just ominous.
When I lived in the city and worked in the suburbs, I saw the Chicago skyline every morning as I zipped down Lake Shore Drive. Sun just above the horizon, glinting off the John Hancock and, coming up from Lower Wacker, the old post office building. Beautiful. Some days were cloudy, some days Lake Michigan was angry.
But there was something to enjoy on the commute, and that still holds true in Vancouver.
So this thing with the skyline.
After running the Sun Run, it occurred to me that there was no need to tilt you head back and look up at the buildings in downtown Vancouver. You can just raise your eyes and see beyond the tops of the buildings.
This has just annoyed the hell out of me.
No one building is any taller than another, though some are shorter. So, from a distance, it looks unified, or indistinct. Boring.
While running the Sun Run though, I had an “ah ha” moment. If the buildings were any taller, they’d completely block mountain views from the streets.
Be it downtown or the other side of the inlet, you see mountains.
And the mountains are Vancouver’s defining feature.