Hey stamp collectors of the Upper West Side! Your dreams have come true: the neighborhood now has its very own postage stamp.
So which famous local landmark will be affixed to the envelope containing your Con Edison check?
Lovely Bethesda Fountain? The iconic San Remo towers? Zabar’s, perhaps?
Nope.
The stamp features a photo of West End Towers at 74 West End Avenue around 63rd Street, taken from the sky. It’s a deliberately “ordinary” image, meant to symbolize the glory of residing in a city made up of tons of anonymous boxes where we live out our lonely lives. Other stamps in the Postal Service’s “Earthscapes” series include a railroad roundhouse, highways, suburbs, and barges shot from above. They can be viewed here.
As the US Postal Service described it: “Endless rows of balconies and windows dot the Manhattan cityscape. In this detail of a photograph, the camera’s telephoto lens compresses the distance between the towers of a high-rise apartment complex on the Upper West Side.”
The photo the stamp is based on was taken by Jim Wark; they should be available for purchase next year.
I thank the USPS for issuing these stamps showing the new skyscrapers in my big tacky complex on the west side of midtown.
I know this isn’t really the Upper West Side, but hey…those guys were real suckers when I told them it is.