Broadway and 24th
(or the moral sin of bad architecture)
Somebody owns that building.
Somebody chose to buy it.
Somebody--
once upon a time--
chose to build it.
Deliberately chose to be meager and middling.
Chose to be cheap and cheerless.
Made the decision to be dull on a grand scale.
Somebody chose to build a great, drab, stingy thing
Even though it faced this road--
this busy corner.
It was probably in the 50's or 60's--
that selfish, self-sure era
When people could explain away
the absence of bother or care or love,
When they justified their lack of effort or expense,
their calculated greed,
And called it stylish--modern--
"European."
Someone
back then
Decided that for decades this big blah building
Would cross a thousand sight-lines in a day
with no uplift
with no leaven
with no beauty to lighten for even a moment
one private burden.
Decided it was okay--
To gift the world a great blandness--
like the loud bore at a party,
The one you make invisible,
the one with a little something on his chin.
So here it will stand for decades more--
not even interesting enough to be ugly--
And with such a slow and public decay.
Waiting on anyone who could love this corner,
this little scrap of the world,
a little better.
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