The Woolworth Building Tower Above the Clouds

Photograph showing the Woolworth Building poking up above the clouds, showcasing it’s height relative to its surroundings. Taken by Fairchild Aerial Surveys in 1928.

The Woolworth Building was the tallest building in the world when it was completed in 1913. It towered above Lower Manhattan and dominated the skyline of the city. The above photograph was taken in 1928, and it shows the crown of the tower poking up through the clouds, inhabiting an otherworldly realm of sunlight and clouds. This is an iconic image, because it shows that buildings as tall as this achieve verticality for their occupants. On a day like this, the upper reaches of the building are truly in the sky. The low-hanging clouds create a clear separation between the space above and the space below.

I’ve experienced this separation a few times, and each time it was memorable. The first was on a plane in my younger years. At ground level before takeoff, it was cloudy and rainy. The clouds created an ethereal barrier between the sky and the ground, obscuring the bright blue dome into a muted grey wasteland. The plane took off, and as we climbed in altitude we passed through the cloud layer and burst forth into the sunny sky above. It felt like we discovered a world of eternal sunshine, just above the rain and clouds below. It was a visceral reminder that no matter what the weather’s doing at the surface, there’s always sunlight somewhere above it.

The second instance was while climbing Mount Washington in New Hampshire. It was late November, so there was a thick cloud ceiling about two-thirds of the way up the mountain. As I climbed, I eventually passed into it. My connection with the world down below was severed. I didn’t climb high enough to break through the other side like I did in the plane, but I was moving much slower so I was able to inhabit the cloud for quite some time. This experience was all about a sense of limbo. I was cut off from the surrounding land and I existed somewhere up there, in between the ground and the sky. I had no visual queues that either existed, however, which gave the landscape an alien quality.

It’s a surreal feeling to interact with a cloud, and the above photograph captures it brilliantly. For the building occupants, they inhabit a realm above the rest of us. The sky is clear and sunny, and the ground is obscured by clouds. For those down below, it’s a cloudy and rainy day. Clouds normally exist somewhere up there, in the sky. Skyscrapers, planes and mountains allow us to interact with them, which is a major part of their allure. These objects allow humans to achieve verticality, and the presence of a cloud threshold enhances the drama of such an experience.

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