What was magical for me was that in some ways as you get away from them, they acquire another dimension. From up close, they -- you know, I found them very brash and often times vulgar. But the moment you move, and the moment they started mingling -- and first they mingled with the buildings of lower Manhattan, and then you could see those linear forms, and next to them you would see the temples, temple tops, and you would see the statues. You know, they still had the statue, this dancing figure on the top of the old AT&T Building, the Cable Building. And all of these things began to play with this modern form. And there was from the beginning, when you were still in Manhattan, there was this feeling of (you know) sort of -- this is then and this is now. We are the new boys. We're defining the new world.

And then as you began to get farther away, then the water played a role. So they came up from the water. And that was in the tradition of the old monasteries that are built, you know, right by the ocean, or the churches and so on, the new church in LA that's built right on the expressway, the new cathedral. And you could see them. There was this tiny Greek church, you know, came up to about three stories. And it was just sublime to see this tiny thing and these gigantic buildings. And then the water, a river that didn't care about anything but just going there and minding its own business. And it wasn't that you alone felt this way, because if you were near the water, you would see the boats coming in. And then you would see people rushing up front, you know, and looking at this, you know, and "What is it?" You know, it's like they knew that there were tall buildings in New York and so on, but they were never prepared for this experience. And I don't think that we're ever prepared for the color, for the, you know, the brilliance that sometimes they had, to see the way in which you could see a cloud passing by, you know, on top of, you know, you see the shadow of a cloud. Sometimes you could distinguish tiny human beings on the roof.