Now that I have some very steady freelance editing gigs, I don’t wind up seeing as much of the city as I used to, when I was scrambling all over town from month to month. But just this week I happened to take a job located in the new 7 World Trade Center building.

Never mind the Jenny Holzer installation in the lobby, the high-tech elevators that convince you no one but you works in this building, the staggering view and light from way up here, the weird perspective onto Ground Zero, where I could watch the toy-size backhoes doing K-turns all day long, and the fact that I can look out from the 29th floor and see carved stone elephant heads adorning the building next door.

It’s just invigorating to come up out of the subway in this area, with the air crisp and the buildings soaring up, and everyone looking busy busy busy. In my little Queens bubble—which is all about immigrant NYC, and that energy (and my own personal sloth)—I’d forgotten about this kind of NYC energy: humming financial engines, strong architecture, the fact that we’re all on a little island that humans have completely, ingeniously covered in stone and concrete, like a scab.

Meanwhile, inside the building, I’d also forgotten about office culture…or at least a whole new set of quirky behavior under fluorescent lights. And because everything at this office is perfectly gleaming and new, I feel all the more like I’m on a TV set. It’s great to be able to walk into a totally new world for three days, and then walk back out.

Incidentally, it seems like everyone is always eating here. All day long, I hear the rustle of candy bags being torn open, the pop of deli container lids, conversations about where to get sandwiches. I guess it’s part of settling into a new space, getting to know the neighborhood, sorting out what’s stocked in the corporate fridge (seltzer water—classy!).

Or else it’s just time for me to eat lunch.