For a period of time, as a child, I told people that I was the Bionic Man. I wasn’t, of course; but they didn’t know.  How could they? I told them I was. At least that was the reasoning of a six year old boy.

Every time we pass a place like Paris, Arkansas or Rome, Georgia I remember my days as the Bionic Man. I can’t help but think that all of these places are trying to be something they’re not.

In a similar vein, a small town near where we used to live and immediately across the river from Manhattan calls itself West New York. Its proximity to the great city is so close that it could very easily be a borough. But unlike my impenetrable childhood lie, everyone here knows the truth. The town’s full name is West New York, New Jersey. Apparently they didn’t think through their cover as well as I did. I’d never have called myself Steve Austin Schmidt. If I did, nobody would have believed I was the Bionic Man. It’s so obvious.

But what West New York lacks in skilled subterfuge and apparently in self esteem it makes up for with one of the best views of the New York City skyline anywhere. Set high upon a bluff, carved eons ago by a river that still rages below, its unobstructed panorama stretches from the financial district at Manhattan’s southern most tip, northward past the Empire State Building, to the George Washington Bridge and beyond. It’s one of the best views anywhere in the world.

Mount Washington in Pittsburgh is the spitting image of West New York. So much so that I thought it was a mirage. We walked along a nearly identical street, lined on one side with two-family houses in a neighborhood that has seen better days. The opposing side disappears down a high cliff to a river that protects the towering Pittsburgh skyline like a moat. I’m told there is no better place to see the city than from this vantage point.

We went there for the view. We found a small slice of home.