A New York City apartment window does not usually come with front-row seats to a piece of art slowly revealing itself, brick by brick.
But, for months, that unusual view became the unexpected highlight of Gabby Miller’s daily routine, she told Newsweek—and, more recently, a viral moment that has captivated millions of viewers online.
Miller, 26, shared a tightly edited TikTok on February 1 showing the view from her former apartment window overlooking a high-rise building on 23rd Street and Park Avenue. Across a series of time jumps, a huge, blank white wall on the neighboring building slowly transforms as painters methodically fill in each section, eventually revealing a detailed image. The video has since been viewed more than 7.9 million times and earned over 1.2 million likes, along with a flood of positive comments.
“I took a video from my apartment window, which overlooks a building on 23rd Street and Park Avenue in NYC,” Miller, @gabmorgmill, said. “Every month, I noticed that the billboard on the side of the building across from me would change. It took me about six months to realize that they were actually sending real people up there to paint each brick and create the advertisement.”
The viral clip shows the process condensed into seconds, but Miller said the transformation unfolds over days. Each month, the wall is first washed completely white, before painters begin what looks, from a distance, like a massive paint-by-numbers project. Miller captured the most-recent change over three days as the advertisement for the new month took shape.
Overlay text on the video summed up her fascination: “My favorite thing about my apartment is that, every month, I get to watch a few guys execute the biggest paint by numbers I’ve ever seen.” In the caption, Miller added that guessing what the final image would be had become part of the fun.
“As someone who loves paint by numbers and arts and crafts, I was especially fascinated to watch this whole process take place,” Miller said. “I turned it into a guessing game each month, trying to guess who and what they were painting within the first day of the change.”
What began as a quiet, personal ritual quickly struck a chord far beyond her window. Miller said she had no expectations that the TikTok post would go viral. Until then, most of her videos had drawn only a handful of views. She almost limited the clip to her family group chat before deciding, on a whim, to share it publicly.
“I absolutely had no expectation for this to go viral,” Miller said. “I started posting on my account just for fun.”
As the views climbed, so did the engagement. Commenters shared their own experiences of spotting the same billboard around the city, uploaded photos from different vantage points and debated who or what was being depicted as the painting progressed.
Miller has since moved apartments and noted that sharing the location is no longer a security concern. Looking back, she said the response reminded her of how small moments—like watching painters at work outside a window—can resonate when shared.
“I didn’t realize how meaningful this post would have become,” she said. “But I am so glad that, in sharing a few minutes from my morning, I was able to bring other people a little joy.”
Do you have any funny or adorable videos or pictures that you want to share? We want to see the best ones! Send them to life@newsweek.com, and they could appear on our site.