Dear One Charles Center,
From the moment I stood among your columns, towering in forestlike urban heights, my face awash in the dazzling reflection of your colossal stack of windows, I knew you would do something powerful to my heart.
As a lover of lyrics, a valentine of verse, an addict of art—here I was with a strange new devotion to your Bauhaus sensibilities.Straight lines, hard angles, sparse beauty. You have a twin in New York, whom I sought out in wonder according to my obsessive devotion to your force.
Each morning I am nestled near the zenith of your architectural monument, gazing across the city and feeling a solitary possession. I know you inside and out. I’ve explored your heights and depths, experienced the view from 2 and 7, 12 and 22, everywhere in between. Listless afternoons in your lovely lobby are perpetually punctuated by the aqueous attribute on your south patio. You are truly the “Mies’ knees.”
I’ve discovered long-forgotten plans from architects gone by to revise and reconstruct and rebuild your private patios, sloping stairs, and grand green marble—that iconic stone encapsulating the elevators—the golden chutes that raise and plummet me, like a sanguine spectator traveling within your veins. You gracefully anchor the city east to west, north to south along Charles, an artery of our city.
You’re an idol. You’re a classic. You may be reimagined for the future, but you’ll always be a graceful reminder of the past.
With love,
Stephanie
Stephanie Teeple is concierge and corporate event planner for her dear OCC, and rarely dabbles in the composition of grotesquely maudlin odes except in its honor.