The sighted leading the blind

Probably the most challenging tour I ever gave was a group of blind British people, in NYC for the first time, on an open-top double-decker. Such a tour required the ultimate in descriptiveness of what was going on about them, yet the descriptiveness had to be in nonvisual terms. Luckily, it was a sunny day, which helped.

The time was about 9 AM, or 9:15. We ran south on 7th Avenue from Times Square, and turned left (east) on 34th Street. No one on the bus could see a thing, but the sun shone on them, which created a warmth on the fronts of their bodies and faces, as we headed into the morning sunshine. I began talking about the Empire State Building, describing how New York's twin empires -- Wall Street finance and transportation between the Atlantic and the Great Lakes -- had led to the state being dubbed The Empire State. Then I gave the story of the creation of the Empire State Building, which was ahead and on our right side.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Emipre State Building is immensely tall. When your plane took off from Gatwick, it climbed a full minute before it was the height of the top of the building's antenna, or 1435 feet. We are now more than a block from the Empire State building, and it can affect us all from a block away. This block, by the way, is nearly 600 feet long. But the bulk of the building's tower is more than one thousand feet tall, and the sun is halfway up the morning sky, meaning we're getting it at about a 45-degree angle right now."

"We're crossing Herald Square, the multiple corner of Sixth Avenue, Broadway and 34th Street which we are on. And now..." We were all feeling the sudden chill as the sunlight was removed by the bulk of the building. "We have crossed into the shadow of the Empire State, which stands at the far end of this block, nearly a full 600 feet away from us, but it's now blocking the sun's warmth from us. And it's still going to take about another minute, at 20 miles an hour, to get to the Empire State Building. So now you have a better idea of how truly tall it is."

TourguideStan