The RenCen was always a place filled with them, a place that filled the space where we watched the fireworks before it rose upon the skyline of the city.

I remember the old train station: Mom and Dad had trekked to Italy, and Mir and Loy were tasked with watching us. While they were in town, the Freedom Train parked down there at the river, as activity was underway to forever change the waterfront: The station would soon be gone, our view of the fireworks forevermore obscured; a city rose upon the city’s shore.

It is an amazing building. Magnificent angles and pathways to bridge the towers. Gone is the water: The waterfall, the pond. Gone are the dark covies in the basement where I used to huddle to write bad poetry and songs, where I’d go to escape friends when they became too cheerful for my whinging petulance.

It is more welcoming than it used to be, and brighter. The entry is better without the berms.

I miss the solitude of the basement, but enjoy looking at the cars. The atrium is a beautiful addition.

We had an unobstructed view of the fireworks before the building was erected, a perilous perch atop our flat, gravel roof that we accessed by climbing out the little, bathroom window – an access used for more degenerate acts in later years.

That’s gone, too: Flat roof that cracked like bombs when ice broke loose, every winter, covered over with one pitched to resolve that issue.

Now GM is gone, as well, and there’s talk of tearing it down.