200 feet (approx.)

The city from nineteen floors above the street resembles nothing less than screen onto which I can project anything I want. And this far removed from noise and textures and rhythms, I have about as much relation to reality as I do while watching a film: all plotted, all imagined, all orchestrated, idealized, that one shoveling snow burdened with this problem, that one standing in the alley burdened with that problem, the dramas in cabs, on corners. Up here, in between, quiet, humming in story. All terribly adolescent of me.  The tiny dark sliver I can't rub off the window turned out to be a jet. I get the facts, I study them patiently, I apply imagination. (Bernard Baruch)