If you are an avid solver of The New York Times Crossword, you might have recently stared at a clue that stopped you in your tracks: “Very very tall.”
It is a rare instance where the puzzle feels less like a vocabulary test and more like a descriptive riddle. The answer, as many of you now know, is TOWERING. But as I scrolled through the archives, I realized that “very very tall” is more than just an eight-letter answer. For the New York Times, it is a recurring character—a lived experience filled with ducked heads, stretched inseams, and the universal struggle of finding a pair of pants that actually fit.
The Puzzle Solution: More Than Just Letters
Let’s get the logistics out of the way for those of you keeping score at home. The “Very very tall” clue appeared recently in the NYT puzzle, and the specific answer they were looking for was Towering.
It makes sense. “Towering” implies a height that is not just measurable, but imposing. It evokes the feeling of standing at the base of a skyscraper or next to a professional basketball player. It is the perfect word for when “tall” just doesn’t cut it anymore.
The Burden of the “Very Very Tall”
But the NYT has long been fascinated with the reality of extreme height. Long before the crossword puzzle gave us the word, the newsroom was profiling the people who live it.
Take Kenny George. In 2008, the Times wrote about this 7-foot-7, 360-pound college basketball player. On the court, he was a giant. Off the court? He was a guy who couldn’t fit in a plane seat, couldn’t drive a car, and had joints that constantly ached. His quote remains one of the most honest admissions about gigantism: “I don’t hate it, but there are times I wish that I weren’t so tall.”
It is a sentiment echoed by readers in the comment sections. One commenter, the wife of a 6-foot-4 man, noted that “the top of the fridge still gets cleaned on a regular basis by him”—a silver lining if there ever was one. But the downsides are universal: airline seats, car legroom, and the inevitable, uncreative question: “Do you play basketball?”
The City That Never Fits
New York City is a dense maze of narrow doorways, low-hanging subway signs, and aggressive umbrellas. For the “very very tall,” the city is a battlefield.
In a 2014 piece asking New Yorkers about height, the complaints were visceral. One 6-foot-7 commuter described his daily trek into the subway system as “full of booby traps”. Another tall resident pointed out the unique danger of rainstorms: the dreaded umbrella at eye level. “I’ve found my eyes are at perfect level for those cheap little wire eye-pokers,” wrote Zachary Gould, perfectly capturing the specific agony of a tall person navigating a crowd of shorter people with pointy metal sticks.
The Tallest of the Tall: A 1978 Classic
The most fascinating artifact in the Times archive regarding this topic comes from 1978. It is a profile of Sandy Allen, the world’s tallest woman at 7-foot-7, and Chris Greener, Europe’s tallest man.
The article is a time capsule of empathy. It describes Miss Allen’s life in Shelbyville, Indiana, where she worked as a secretary for the State Board of Animal Health. She wore “clown-floppy size 22 shoes” and tent-like clothes. At the time, she was working as a boardwalk attraction in Wildwood, New Jersey, because finding a “normal” job that accommodated her size was nearly impossible.
There is a heartbreakingly sweet moment when she meets Mr. Greener. Surrounded by gawking crowds on the boardwalk, Chris looks at Sandy—for once in his life without bending his neck down—and jokes: “I guess we’ll just start with, ‘Isn’t the weather nice up here?’” It is a rare glimpse of two people who finally get to be “average” in each other’s company.
The Wage of Height
There is, however, one benefit to standing out in a crowd. According to a study cited by the Times (and one that might make you stand a little straighter), tall people literally earn more money.
Psychologist Timothy A. Judge found that for every inch above average, a person might earn roughly 789 more peryear. Overa30−year career, a6−foot−tall person could earn nearly 166,000 more than a 5-foot-5 peer. So, while you might hit your head on the subway door, at least your 401(k) looks robust.
Final Thoughts
The next time you fill in TOWERING on a crossword grid, take a moment to appreciate the duality of the word. It is the New York City skyline, yes. But it is also the teenager who can never find jeans long enough, the politician (like Brooklyn’s 6-foot-10 Councilman Robert Cornegy Jr.) who needs a custom desk, and the woman in 1978 who just wanted a chair that wouldn’t collapse under her.
What about you? Are you the “towering” type, or do you live in the five-foot-something “armpit zone” of the subway during rush hour? Drop a comment below about your own vertical adventures.
