Manchester Roundhouse

I found the railroad roundhouse as I had last left her — abandoned, decaying, swathed in graffiti, languishing under the beating of another brutal New York winter. Some of the refuse had been cleared in preparation for a future renovation, but there was still plenty of chaos.

"If this spectacular old girl could talk," I thought. "The stories she could tell."'

Bits and pieces of bygone conversations bounced around in my head: travelers saying goodbye or being welcomed home, railroad workers kibitzing, farmers swapping stories as they loaded crops into boxcars. A countermelody swelled over voices of the past as I heard drunken teens swapping profanities, urban legends and swaggering dares. Aerosol cans rattled and filled the air with clouds of paint as revelers emptied their souls onto the roundhouse walls.

To be sure, there's artistry in much of their graffiti and it tells stories of hope, heartbreak, loyalty and strength. There’s also straight up humor in the sexually explicit tags which, as one might guess, fall comically short in anatomical accuracy and relational insight.

I’ll be back, grand lady. With reverence.