WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.119 Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. The lad you 2 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.599 are here, Let's get into it. The elevator in Wilmot 3 00:00:11.599 --> 00:00:14.480 Tower doesn't have an eight floor button panel. Inside, the 4 00:00:14.480 --> 00:00:16.960 brushed steel cab jumps neatly from seven, two or nine, 5 00:00:17.079 --> 00:00:20.160 as if nothing could be more ordinary. For years, I'd 6 00:00:20.199 --> 00:00:23.120 sin sanitized versions of the superstition in buildings north and 7 00:00:23.199 --> 00:00:25.519 south of the city, Skip the thirteenth, skip the fourth, 8 00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:28.440 whatever needed to be evaded in difference to Luck. But 9 00:00:28.559 --> 00:00:31.120 here at thirteen and Wilmot, in his quad modernist block 10 00:00:31.160 --> 00:00:33.280 with very little to hide, the missingmate struck me not 11 00:00:33.320 --> 00:00:34.880 as a nod to fate, but as a gap that 12 00:00:34.920 --> 00:00:37.920 had some elgon unexplained by every one I encountered. My 13 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:40.200 first day back in town, still living out of cardboard 14 00:00:40.200 --> 00:00:42.799 boxes and balancing yesterday's coffee on moving crates, I was 15 00:00:42.840 --> 00:00:45.640 invited for luncheon a tower by Miriam. She's a friend 16 00:00:45.640 --> 00:00:48.119 of long standing, the kind of person who files away 17 00:00:48.119 --> 00:00:51.000 your favorite short stories and still sends real postcards from 18 00:00:51.079 --> 00:00:54.280 art fares. She chose a Wilmot for its river glimpses, 19 00:00:54.320 --> 00:00:57.119 its reliable postmen, and the impossible quiet You get eleven 20 00:00:57.159 --> 00:00:59.960 stories above street level I'd hoped her place held on 21 00:01:00.079 --> 00:01:02.759 to those homie instructive artifacts, the teacup chip by Nice, 22 00:01:02.880 --> 00:01:06.519 the old smudge to envelope used as a makeshift bookmark. Instead, 23 00:01:06.719 --> 00:01:09.680 my mind got snighted by the elevator. Miriam met me 24 00:01:09.719 --> 00:01:12.040 in the lobby, looping her shawl tighter, tapping the cold 25 00:01:12.040 --> 00:01:14.359 bottom with the air of someone unlocking a familiar coat. 26 00:01:15.040 --> 00:01:17.480 As the cab opened, I made a passing joke, no 27 00:01:17.599 --> 00:01:20.560 eight floor, What are we afraid of? Bad Chinese restaurant lock? 28 00:01:21.159 --> 00:01:24.200 She raised an eyebrower. That's just how it's always been. 29 00:01:24.599 --> 00:01:26.599 There was a stitch of something private in her smile, 30 00:01:26.760 --> 00:01:28.760 as if I had question gravity or the turning of 31 00:01:28.760 --> 00:01:31.400 gears and a clock. The ride up had that immutable 32 00:01:31.480 --> 00:01:33.959 frictionless quality you get in well constructed towers, not a 33 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:36.640 single jutter or slow draw over the suspect missing floor. 34 00:01:37.239 --> 00:01:39.439 Those opened to a world of potted ferns, princes of 35 00:01:39.480 --> 00:01:42.640 lopsided Venetian balconies, and Miriam's voice, leading me to a 36 00:01:42.680 --> 00:01:45.760 lunch suffused with stories from teaching days in local politics. 37 00:01:46.480 --> 00:01:48.680 When I left, waving to the dozing door men, my 38 00:01:48.719 --> 00:01:51.239 thoughts cycled back again and again to that elevator panel. 39 00:01:51.799 --> 00:01:53.560 Even as I told myself it was nothing but a 40 00:01:53.560 --> 00:01:55.519 bit of build of superstition. I rehearsed the list of 41 00:01:55.519 --> 00:01:58.239 odd places where I'd seen four number skip and realized 42 00:01:58.239 --> 00:02:00.439 that here in a city there were plenty of high 43 00:02:00.519 --> 00:02:04.879 rises advertising thirteen four penthouses or apartments on seven twelve, fourteen, 44 00:02:04.959 --> 00:02:08.719 all accounted for. This was different For a practical code 45 00:02:08.719 --> 00:02:12.000 ban seventies block, it seemed impractical. I let it go 46 00:02:12.080 --> 00:02:14.560 for a day. But when I set upout arranging my 47 00:02:14.639 --> 00:02:17.120 new life, searching for familiar certainties in the routines of 48 00:02:17.120 --> 00:02:19.599 an unfamiliar building, the missing eight returned to me like 49 00:02:19.639 --> 00:02:22.479 a hook. By temperament and by thirty years of training, 50 00:02:22.520 --> 00:02:24.280 I am not a person to chase mysteries for their 51 00:02:24.280 --> 00:02:27.400 own sake. My career was a patchwork of city projects 52 00:02:27.400 --> 00:02:32.360 and infrastructure restoration bridges, signal boxes, utility studies, blueprints and 53 00:02:32.360 --> 00:02:34.479 its builts are my novels. And I know the Way's 54 00:02:34.520 --> 00:02:37.159 code from the nineteen seventy stamped its requirements into every 55 00:02:37.240 --> 00:02:40.560 multi story residential map, every floor label, every stable marked, 56 00:02:40.599 --> 00:02:43.080 even the numbering of apartments regulated for ease of fire 57 00:02:43.120 --> 00:02:46.199 department entry. Wilmott Tower itself is a classic of its 58 00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:49.639 minor type. Sixteen stories of geometric slabs, shallow set windows, 59 00:02:49.680 --> 00:02:52.719 brown brick cutting a sharp outline against the sky. Not 60 00:02:52.759 --> 00:02:56.080 a prestige property, but no slouch cheater built beside the river, 61 00:02:56.280 --> 00:02:58.879 just as the city was chasing its international style phase. 62 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:00.840 It remains a landmark in the sense that betting on 63 00:03:00.879 --> 00:03:03.000 its location will always win your free round in a 64 00:03:03.039 --> 00:03:06.159 taxi conversation. The lobbies are muted, a fair blond wood 65 00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:08.319 tirat so flooring, an offensive seating, and the mail room 66 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:10.280 runs on are rythen so predictable you can set your 67 00:03:10.280 --> 00:03:12.560 watch to it. The seven thirty m shuffle, the launch 68 00:03:12.599 --> 00:03:15.319 time chatter, the quiet influx of puzzles and periodicals before 69 00:03:15.319 --> 00:03:19.479 bed in, wilmot routines, anchor everyone. Miriam had lived this 70 00:03:19.560 --> 00:03:21.919 since the late nineties, inheriting her flat in the Great 71 00:03:21.919 --> 00:03:24.879 Shuffle after a family moved from across town. She served 72 00:03:24.879 --> 00:03:27.000 the tenant's council and organized the art and the foy 73 00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:29.719 product her apartment, magnet for stray books and the neighbors 74 00:03:29.719 --> 00:03:33.319 wayward shopping carts round her cir called a Lusi held community. 75 00:03:33.400 --> 00:03:36.439 Retired teachers and finance types of family with trains practicing 76 00:03:36.520 --> 00:03:39.080 violin scales by the open window. A few students squeezed 77 00:03:39.080 --> 00:03:42.840 in by circumstance. The doorman gas started every morning with 78 00:03:42.919 --> 00:03:45.680 the newspaper folded so sharply the creases threatened to last 79 00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:48.840 the news itself. The maintenance crew sought to mail stacked 80 00:03:48.840 --> 00:03:52.199 deliveries and discussed metropolitan electoral politics with the kind of 81 00:03:52.199 --> 00:03:54.360 dead and detachment found only in people who have seen 82 00:03:54.360 --> 00:03:56.960 a city's pipes and wires in every season. If you 83 00:03:57.000 --> 00:04:00.439 paid attention, Wilmot was no stranger to quirks. A fourth 84 00:04:00.479 --> 00:04:03.840 story mural faded to a legible abstraction. A garden club 85 00:04:03.879 --> 00:04:05.960 at once tried to grow tomatoes in window boxes to 86 00:04:05.960 --> 00:04:09.360 twenty meters above the street. Some one ingeniously using their 87 00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:11.960 balcony as a station for feeding stray cats, complete with 88 00:04:11.960 --> 00:04:15.080 the zip line for free tubs. And yet all of 89 00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:18.000 these could be easily explained or choked up to resident eccentricity, 90 00:04:18.040 --> 00:04:20.319 the stories that gathered like sediment in any building old 91 00:04:20.399 --> 00:04:22.680 enough for a second generation to gossip about the first. 92 00:04:23.360 --> 00:04:25.959 But in this tower, where every door bore its coatmndated number, 93 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:29.279 the elevator's omission gnawed at me. After lunch, I walked 94 00:04:29.279 --> 00:04:32.199 my dog uppotly philosophical U named Archie, along the clause 95 00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:35.800 at the building's base. While Archie completed his scientific survey 96 00:04:35.800 --> 00:04:38.720 of every lamp post, I gazed up and started, almost automatically, 97 00:04:38.759 --> 00:04:41.399 counting the rows of windows. It was an old habit, 98 00:04:41.439 --> 00:04:44.519 born of side visits and puntillsts. Fifteen rows above the lobby, 99 00:04:44.560 --> 00:04:48.000 but sixteen plints, including the penthouse trio above. As Archie 100 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:50.480 sniffed his way through the undergrowth, I moved a few paces, 101 00:04:50.519 --> 00:04:54.920 craning up. The patman seemed slightly off. I started telling again, 102 00:04:55.199 --> 00:04:57.519 using a pencil stop to keep count, mapping numbers as 103 00:04:57.600 --> 00:05:01.040 Archie stared at a persistent sparrow. Later, I circled back, 104 00:05:01.199 --> 00:05:04.160 eyeing the line up of mailboxes in the lobby, Miriam's 105 00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:07.319 box eleven e. Most floors had four or five labeled 106 00:05:07.360 --> 00:05:09.959 units through deorby. When I compared the building directory, a 107 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:12.879 backup plastic board tapped beside the security desk. It listed 108 00:05:12.879 --> 00:05:15.879 barely enough apartments to fill fifteen floors, but the apartment 109 00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:18.639 windows stacked up of me clearly exceeded the directory's tidy 110 00:05:18.680 --> 00:05:21.759 pairs and trios. The numbers fit if he pretended there 111 00:05:21.759 --> 00:05:24.399 was an extra floor. I was not, as far as 112 00:05:24.399 --> 00:05:27.639 I knew, in the business of inventing floors. I waited 113 00:05:27.639 --> 00:05:29.480 in the lobby for a moment, enough time for a 114 00:05:29.519 --> 00:05:31.800 young woman carrying two reusable bags in a set of 115 00:05:31.800 --> 00:05:34.839 ballet flats to stride through the entry. We nodded at 116 00:05:34.839 --> 00:05:37.319 each other with the polite reserved a mandate of urban hallways. 117 00:05:38.040 --> 00:05:40.920 Excuse me, I said, do you know why there isn't 118 00:05:40.920 --> 00:05:44.000 an eight floor on the elevator panel? She paused, looking 119 00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:45.879 up at the elevator directory as as seeing it for 120 00:05:45.920 --> 00:05:48.279 the first time, shrugged and smiled. Hat Yeah, I guess 121 00:05:48.279 --> 00:05:51.040 I never thought about it. Her smile was so effortless, 122 00:05:51.040 --> 00:05:53.199 so without calculation, that I had no way to tell 123 00:05:53.199 --> 00:05:56.160 if she ever wondered. Before she pawned the cold button 124 00:05:56.319 --> 00:05:59.920 and disappeared inside. I caught the doorman between crosswood clues, 125 00:06:00.600 --> 00:06:03.800 has any one ever lived on the eighth floor? He hesitated, 126 00:06:03.800 --> 00:06:07.120 flipping his pencil in his hand, just old design staff. 127 00:06:07.199 --> 00:06:09.839 He finally offered for sly and remote, like he was 128 00:06:09.879 --> 00:06:13.240 humoring an eccentric uncle. You know, he said vaguely. The 129 00:06:13.279 --> 00:06:16.000 codes changed so often back then. Besides, people don't much 130 00:06:16.040 --> 00:06:18.879 care as long as the elevator works. He pocketed his 131 00:06:18.959 --> 00:06:21.720 pencil and leaned away, eyes fixed on the crosswood squares. 132 00:06:22.480 --> 00:06:25.199 None of this was especially dramatic, a skipped floor a 133 00:06:25.199 --> 00:06:28.879 builder's worm, community indifference, but to a mind train on blueprints, 134 00:06:28.920 --> 00:06:32.079 the practical oddity was obvious. For a building from this era, 135 00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:36.720 nothing was left to mystery. City inspectors demanded adieu. Floors 136 00:06:36.720 --> 00:06:39.720 were not hampered, but because insurance, fire CODs and common 137 00:06:39.720 --> 00:06:43.240 book keeping insisted on a kind of bureaucratic transparency. I'd 138 00:06:43.240 --> 00:06:45.600 seen buildings fudge from the top down Apentaz that was 139 00:06:45.600 --> 00:06:48.560 simply another equitable slab with a fanci a label, but 140 00:06:48.759 --> 00:06:50.800 raising an entire level in a way that left every 141 00:06:50.800 --> 00:06:54.000 one unconcerned, not something deeper in the logic of the place. 142 00:06:54.720 --> 00:06:57.160 A few days later, while waiting for Archer to finish 143 00:06:57.199 --> 00:06:59.800 his pre dust meandering, I found myself once again opposite 144 00:06:59.800 --> 00:07:03.360 will not ceased facad windows glimming in straight lines, But 145 00:07:03.439 --> 00:07:05.800 even at a cursory glance, there was something off about 146 00:07:05.800 --> 00:07:08.240 the math. I tried to trace the rose as if 147 00:07:08.279 --> 00:07:12.279 reading musical notation ground mezzanine, and then up one two 148 00:07:12.319 --> 00:07:15.240 for eleven, twelve, thirteen, ending at fifteen sixteen. If you 149 00:07:15.240 --> 00:07:18.959 counted the mechanical penthouse, but the bands of brick between seven, 150 00:07:19.399 --> 00:07:21.680 nine and ten. If I squinted, there were more horizontal 151 00:07:21.680 --> 00:07:24.639 scenes than button numbers. The difference was subtle gaps, too 152 00:07:24.680 --> 00:07:27.759 slim for full apartments, but too consistent for buried conduits 153 00:07:27.839 --> 00:07:30.959 or ventilation spaces. I went back inside and took an 154 00:07:30.959 --> 00:07:35.439 excuse to check Miriam's mail box eleveny. Scrolling through the 155 00:07:35.439 --> 00:07:38.480 directory again, I ran a finger over the floors fifteen 156 00:07:38.480 --> 00:07:41.920 in all, no sign of eight, just the jump perfectly neat. 157 00:07:42.519 --> 00:07:44.839 I checked the mail room, a clean tail forwardnook with 158 00:07:44.839 --> 00:07:46.759 the hum of low grade air and the chemical perfume 159 00:07:46.759 --> 00:07:50.399 of new envelopes and parcel tape. Stacks of deliveries waited 160 00:07:50.399 --> 00:07:52.600 for their claimants. One was marked for a nine, sea, 161 00:07:52.720 --> 00:07:55.920 another for twelve, A no eight in the pile. But 162 00:07:56.040 --> 00:07:57.879 as I passed my finger over the metal face of 163 00:07:57.879 --> 00:08:00.240 the boxes, a faintly warm patch on the brass plate 164 00:08:00.279 --> 00:08:02.399 between seven and nine caught my eye. The faint remnant 165 00:08:02.399 --> 00:08:05.040 of a number may be sanded down. I caught a 166 00:08:05.079 --> 00:08:07.079 woman my own age, new to me, but evidently at 167 00:08:07.079 --> 00:08:08.839 home in the holes, to ask, does it ever feel 168 00:08:08.839 --> 00:08:11.079 ought to just skip a floor? With a tilt of 169 00:08:11.120 --> 00:08:14.600 her head, she said, never noticed. She pointed to her box. 170 00:08:14.959 --> 00:08:17.160 I just looked for thirteen B and hoped nobody stole 171 00:08:17.199 --> 00:08:20.920 my gardening catalogs. When I pressed gently, she added, maybe 172 00:08:20.920 --> 00:08:23.120 it's like a bakery skipping a shelf on the quasspern 173 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:27.000 So is there a burned layer to fix? She laughed, 174 00:08:27.040 --> 00:08:30.360 shook her head, and waved good naturedly. It wasn't defensive, 175 00:08:30.480 --> 00:08:32.360 just in troubled in a way that left neither agreement 176 00:08:32.440 --> 00:08:35.240 nor disagreement in the air. If I'd been looking to 177 00:08:35.279 --> 00:08:38.080 confirm the phenomenon as a quirk, that answer it would suffice. 178 00:08:38.759 --> 00:08:41.720 But the engineer in meage for proportions, numbers the shape 179 00:08:41.720 --> 00:08:43.960 of what could fit versus what was labeled as present. 180 00:08:44.679 --> 00:08:47.240 Most people seemed to belight on the elevator just getting 181 00:08:47.279 --> 00:08:49.720 them home, But I, with too much time and a 182 00:08:49.759 --> 00:08:53.279 nosey inclination, kept scratching for the loss for that evening. 183 00:08:53.480 --> 00:08:55.960 In Miriam's kitchen, as she sliced bread with the halting 184 00:08:56.000 --> 00:08:58.000 position of some one out of practice, she found my 185 00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:01.399 questions more amusing than tedious. You always do this, you know, 186 00:09:01.559 --> 00:09:03.759 she said, hitting the cross like a drumbeat. Get caught 187 00:09:03.759 --> 00:09:06.440 on the one thing nobody else sees, because usually there 188 00:09:06.480 --> 00:09:08.799 is a good reason, and sometimes it's even interesting, And 189 00:09:08.879 --> 00:09:11.600 you really don't remember an eighth floor here, not as 190 00:09:11.600 --> 00:09:14.440 far as I know. She shrugged, moving brionto plate. He 191 00:09:14.559 --> 00:09:16.399 was gone by the time I moved in. I suppose 192 00:09:16.440 --> 00:09:20.399 there must have been one earlier, right, must there? She grinned, 193 00:09:21.039 --> 00:09:23.519 you're the builder. I let it rest for a moment, 194 00:09:23.559 --> 00:09:25.399 but when she left to make tea, I wandered to 195 00:09:25.399 --> 00:09:28.200 her hallway window, Lining up the strip of glass as 196 00:09:28.240 --> 00:09:32.000 best I could, I counted the rows again, seven, nine, ten, eleven. 197 00:09:32.519 --> 00:09:34.799 The scene below the ninth floor was thicker than the others, 198 00:09:34.919 --> 00:09:37.840 as if something had been shoehorned in long ago. That night, 199 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:41.440 curiosity replaced the thread barefun of the exercise. I found 200 00:09:41.480 --> 00:09:43.720 myself at my kitchen table with a sketch bead, roughing 201 00:09:43.720 --> 00:09:46.360 out blocky rectangles, jotting the heights as best I could 202 00:09:46.360 --> 00:09:49.360 from memory and photographs, flipping through abouted City Mapp's volume, 203 00:09:49.440 --> 00:09:51.480 and finally opening my laptop for the first of what 204 00:09:51.519 --> 00:09:54.480 would become a gentle obsession. By daylight, the routines of 205 00:09:54.519 --> 00:09:58.000 Walnut's social life pressed in. Residents gathered in quiet clusters 206 00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:01.120 on lobby seats discussing the local councils ladies recycling scheme 207 00:10:01.159 --> 00:10:03.799 are the week's new menu at the Persian Cafe. Thus 208 00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:06.600 the dorman presided silently except for his daily a pistolary 209 00:10:06.639 --> 00:10:10.240 feud with city parking enforcement, the maintenance cruise walk drugs 210 00:10:10.279 --> 00:10:13.759 about the elevator breakdown's end. According to rumor, haunted laundry rooms, 211 00:10:13.759 --> 00:10:16.440 but no one ever mentioned floor numbering. If I watch 212 00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:19.840 for differences, the building revealed nothing. Elevator arrived. With the 213 00:10:19.840 --> 00:10:21.919 shopping of various pensioners from four to seven, the tame 214 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:24.000 fees student on route to twelve, the mother with the 215 00:10:24.039 --> 00:10:27.080 pram who stopped at four, all up and down. Everyone's 216 00:10:27.159 --> 00:10:29.440 key fit just one floor, every hole we poured itself 217 00:10:29.480 --> 00:10:32.799 precisely into the expected apartments. Only I found the in 218 00:10:32.840 --> 00:10:35.759 between land and no one evening. As Archie and I 219 00:10:35.799 --> 00:10:38.159 looped back from the nearest park espied as service stare, 220 00:10:38.200 --> 00:10:40.720 a door left ajar on us quint In a whim, 221 00:10:40.720 --> 00:10:43.440 I padded upward, accounting up to seven one more. But 222 00:10:43.480 --> 00:10:46.120 between seven and nine there was oddly long landing, no sign, 223 00:10:46.279 --> 00:10:48.399 no door, just a bash expense broken only by the 224 00:10:48.399 --> 00:10:50.759 putted where pained directangle were a number of sign plate 225 00:10:50.879 --> 00:10:53.159 might have been. When I pressed upon against the wall, 226 00:10:53.159 --> 00:10:56.559 it felt hollow, not studded or solid. The next day, 227 00:10:56.600 --> 00:10:58.799 when I returned, the door was closed and the hall 228 00:10:58.919 --> 00:11:01.720 is neat pined jaw betrayed none. At the local coffee 229 00:11:01.720 --> 00:11:03.720 shop across from the tower, where the window was stream 230 00:11:03.759 --> 00:11:05.679 morning sun and the air was thick with topman as 231 00:11:05.679 --> 00:11:08.759 forty radio, I met a lively collection of Wilmot's regulars, 232 00:11:08.759 --> 00:11:11.399 some gossip, some grumble, one or two reading Greek poetry 233 00:11:11.440 --> 00:11:14.200 for fun. I begun to admit my small obsession and 234 00:11:14.240 --> 00:11:16.399 inch my way into the circle by asking about building 235 00:11:16.399 --> 00:11:20.759 oddities over a stale scone. One resident or retired doctor werecanted. 236 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:22.399 Used to be the best snap in the city was 237 00:11:22.440 --> 00:11:24.320 mid day oneth. The life through the solarium would just 238 00:11:24.399 --> 00:11:26.639 knock you out. But that was ages ago. Must have 239 00:11:26.639 --> 00:11:28.720 been the ill roof gard instead. She finished, as if 240 00:11:28.799 --> 00:11:31.240 catching a factual error that only just nudged her memory. 241 00:11:31.879 --> 00:11:34.600 Are you certain about the solarium? You mean not the penthouse? 242 00:11:35.240 --> 00:11:38.120 She twirled her glass's chain. Well, that's what we used 243 00:11:38.120 --> 00:11:40.000 to say, meet you up in the solarium on ape 244 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:42.399 bring your crossword. Maybe I'm thinking of the roof launch. 245 00:11:42.600 --> 00:11:45.679 I don't know. Old buildings blend together, don't they. We 246 00:11:45.720 --> 00:11:49.559 shifted to other topics, but her story halm delicate and persistent, 247 00:11:49.600 --> 00:11:52.000 as if some previous yer lingered behind a clouded pane. 248 00:11:52.360 --> 00:11:54.639 I now a given up treating the missing floor as 249 00:11:54.639 --> 00:11:58.960 a trivial oddity. My attention shifted clearly. People used to 250 00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:00.840 refer to the eighth floor, even if now it was 251 00:12:00.879 --> 00:12:04.519 missing in every physical and social register. I started almost 252 00:12:04.559 --> 00:12:08.480 compulsively to catalog building directories tenant less courtesy of the 253 00:12:08.519 --> 00:12:12.360 city's not quite private property tax portal archive newsletters. It 254 00:12:12.440 --> 00:12:15.440 might have amounted to nothing of curiosity and error, but 255 00:12:15.519 --> 00:12:17.919 as I scrolled through records from different years, a confusion 256 00:12:17.960 --> 00:12:21.960 only multiplied. In some document, Walmot Tower listed sixteen floors, 257 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:25.039 with apartments eight to through eighty. In others, the transition 258 00:12:25.080 --> 00:12:26.919 lapped straight from seven eight to nine eight, as if 259 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:31.279 eight had never existed. Blueprints were trickier. The city's digital 260 00:12:31.360 --> 00:12:34.159 archive was still only patchly scanned, a palantist of pds 261 00:12:34.159 --> 00:12:37.320 and crosty tiff images, blue lines yellowing with age. I 262 00:12:37.360 --> 00:12:39.960 found several permits from the nineteen seventies that showed explicit 263 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:43.240 flo accounts in eighth level apartments marked distinctly, but then 264 00:12:43.320 --> 00:12:45.679 after a certain year all mention of they it vanished 265 00:12:45.720 --> 00:12:48.279 from subsequent plans, as though sliced out and patched over. 266 00:12:49.039 --> 00:12:51.639 More tactile was the process of measuring. One morning, I 267 00:12:51.720 --> 00:12:54.240 strode round the building with a tape fun camera in hand, 268 00:12:54.960 --> 00:12:57.440 counting the rows of windows. One more time. I measured 269 00:12:57.440 --> 00:12:59.279 the total rise of the brickwork, and tried to back 270 00:12:59.279 --> 00:13:01.399 calculate the number or floors by both the size of 271 00:13:01.399 --> 00:13:04.000 the rows and the spacing of the external scenes. By 272 00:13:04.080 --> 00:13:07.799 results refused to conform. Sometimes the windows lined up perfectly 273 00:13:07.840 --> 00:13:10.320 with elevator buttons. At others there was a subtle but 274 00:13:10.360 --> 00:13:12.519 persistent bolt in the alignment around the level where it 275 00:13:12.559 --> 00:13:14.480 should have nestled, a groove about a meter higher or 276 00:13:14.519 --> 00:13:17.519 lower than adjacent rows. I called the local historian, a 277 00:13:17.519 --> 00:13:20.279 brisk woman named Sally, whose devotion to footnotes exceeded even 278 00:13:20.320 --> 00:13:23.279 my own building quirk. You say, I don't recall Will 279 00:13:23.279 --> 00:13:25.879 not having major scandals, but you'd be surprised. Wh arkeffs 280 00:13:25.919 --> 00:13:28.639 cough up. She called back the next week. Odd think 281 00:13:28.720 --> 00:13:31.240 there are society page clippings in the eighties, referencing bridge 282 00:13:31.279 --> 00:13:33.600 tournaments and roofed up events on the eight four solarium 283 00:13:33.720 --> 00:13:36.519 last mentioned, I could find abruptly stops, and after that 284 00:13:36.559 --> 00:13:39.799 it's all penthouse lounge in nineteen four, viewing community newsletters 285 00:13:39.799 --> 00:13:43.000 may be a renumbering, maybe just a habit that died unsettled. 286 00:13:43.039 --> 00:13:45.320 I pressed her. Does the city ever reassign floors in 287 00:13:45.360 --> 00:13:49.279 the wreckers Sometimes, especially if a space is converted. Converting 288 00:13:49.279 --> 00:13:51.080 a roofed up garden or a party room happens, but 289 00:13:51.159 --> 00:13:53.639 usually the bones are left, even if the naanes change 290 00:13:53.679 --> 00:13:56.480 be aught to race it entirely. That evening, as I 291 00:13:56.519 --> 00:13:59.080 crossed the lobby, I noticed a delivery slip slip behind 292 00:13:59.080 --> 00:14:02.320 a stack of outdated four lies beside the entry half faded, 293 00:14:02.399 --> 00:14:05.679 it read eight floor flowers were recipient a Mendel. The 294 00:14:05.759 --> 00:14:07.799 date put it almost six years ago, the year before 295 00:14:07.799 --> 00:14:10.000 I had returned to the city. I brought it up 296 00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:13.519 to Miriam. She shook her head. I don't remember anyone 297 00:14:13.600 --> 00:14:15.799 named Mendel, do you. Maybe it was a hall bouquet. 298 00:14:15.879 --> 00:14:19.080 I don't remember ever having deliveries for eight. The floorst's 299 00:14:19.080 --> 00:14:21.799 receipt was more precise. Wilmot Tower, eighth floor eight D. 300 00:14:22.480 --> 00:14:24.679 When I called the number listed, the new manager told 301 00:14:24.679 --> 00:14:27.320 me the shop's records only went back a handful of years. 302 00:14:27.759 --> 00:14:29.919 We send all the time to Wilmot never turned eighth, 303 00:14:29.960 --> 00:14:32.000 though you sure that's not for the building next door. 304 00:14:32.600 --> 00:14:36.000 With each new tangent, my confusion compounded the building book 305 00:14:36.039 --> 00:14:38.480 swap a rather lively affair for a mostly retired crowd. 306 00:14:38.519 --> 00:14:40.720 I found myself drawn into a chat with Henry, or 307 00:14:40.720 --> 00:14:44.399 retired building superintendent from a few streets over. I pressed him, 308 00:14:44.639 --> 00:14:48.159 nudging the conversation towards Wilmot's floor plan, though that one's 309 00:14:48.240 --> 00:14:51.440 changed lay out a few times. He mused, move the laundry, 310 00:14:51.600 --> 00:14:54.559 knock through some storage, maybe even play with floor numbers 311 00:14:54.559 --> 00:14:57.000 for legal reasons. Owners used to pull stunts to dodge 312 00:14:57.000 --> 00:14:59.759 tax brackets, but whole floors, that's rare. Did someone say 313 00:14:59.759 --> 00:15:02.440 there as a pull up? They once, He laughed, pushing 314 00:15:02.480 --> 00:15:04.240 his by focals up his nose, as if seeing the 315 00:15:04.279 --> 00:15:07.360 memory for a fog of digits. With every new data point, 316 00:15:07.440 --> 00:15:09.840 it became clear people referred to the eight floor as 317 00:15:09.840 --> 00:15:13.440 if it existed. All newsletters referenced to reading contests on eight, 318 00:15:13.559 --> 00:15:16.960 now replaced by more generic community lounge events in the 319 00:15:16.960 --> 00:15:19.759 city's records. The eighth the pier disappeared, then returned as 320 00:15:19.799 --> 00:15:22.679 a sort of ghost sanitation, fading with every subsequent revision. 321 00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:25.320 The biggest contradiction of all was that no one seemed 322 00:15:25.320 --> 00:15:28.320 to mind. There was no anxiety, not even the shadow 323 00:15:28.360 --> 00:15:30.480 of exasperated, a stage of the kind that clings to 324 00:15:30.480 --> 00:15:33.639 a shuttered bakery or belove londromat. The residents wore the 325 00:15:33.639 --> 00:15:35.360 missing floor as if it were a natural part of 326 00:15:35.399 --> 00:15:37.600 life's attrition, like a pop bench lost to a new 327 00:15:37.600 --> 00:15:41.039 traffic circle or a familiar bus route. Dego for good. Still, 328 00:15:41.120 --> 00:15:44.840 my old engineers each remained city records, winter accounts, the 329 00:15:44.919 --> 00:15:47.480 logical floor plans, each acreed only long enough to produce 330 00:15:47.519 --> 00:15:51.200 a further riddle. What's more, people's stories adjusted themselves, as 331 00:15:51.240 --> 00:15:53.720 if collectively trained to let go of the eighth. Their 332 00:15:53.720 --> 00:15:57.159 memories came of PostScript corrections, Oh, that must have been 333 00:15:57.200 --> 00:15:59.320 the roof lange, or maybe I am thinking of the 334 00:15:59.320 --> 00:16:02.440 old Penthousel library. No one clung to eate for affection 335 00:16:02.519 --> 00:16:05.000 or melancholy. The absence was as mild and immutable as 336 00:16:05.039 --> 00:16:08.000 paint drying. For a time, my forks pivoted from a 337 00:16:08.039 --> 00:16:10.320 dozen eight four exist ture haw does an entire four 338 00:16:10.440 --> 00:16:13.919 vanish with no more fustvenamous place. For sure, this became 339 00:16:13.960 --> 00:16:16.759 the heart of the mystery, not the omission itself, but 340 00:16:16.799 --> 00:16:19.200 the manner of a razure of past tense continuously were written, 341 00:16:19.320 --> 00:16:22.840 never properly mourned. I dealved into decades old city archives. 342 00:16:23.480 --> 00:16:27.080 Success of permits showed the eight floor listed various utilities attributed, 343 00:16:27.120 --> 00:16:30.120 cleaned or shuffle for a stretch of years. Then after 344 00:16:30.159 --> 00:16:32.840 a renovation in the late nineties, references to floor eight 345 00:16:32.960 --> 00:16:36.879 mechanical electrical residence simply ended. Renovation logs that should have 346 00:16:36.879 --> 00:16:39.799 detailed any major removal or reassignment included bland notes like 347 00:16:39.919 --> 00:16:43.120 vertical transition, adjustment or reconfigure a lot per code, but 348 00:16:43.200 --> 00:16:46.120 never said what was moved or deleted. In the earliest 349 00:16:46.120 --> 00:16:48.840 for a Grass Wilmotower's opening day, captured in a faded 350 00:16:48.840 --> 00:16:51.240 newsprin clipping fall, the floors are brightly late ripened with 351 00:16:51.279 --> 00:16:54.279 party bannos. In the more recent shots, the row where 352 00:16:54.320 --> 00:16:56.320 eight should be always lies in shadow, darker than the 353 00:16:56.360 --> 00:17:00.559 rest windows, and let even when adjacent floors shine. One afternoon, 354 00:17:00.639 --> 00:17:03.240 I read my findings allowed to Miriam, hoping that hitherto 355 00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:05.279 a witness would reat me more in fact than fancy. 356 00:17:05.960 --> 00:17:08.440 She listened, stirring a cup of lemon tea, and traced 357 00:17:08.440 --> 00:17:11.720 her thoughts back. There were potlocks on eight, she said slowly. 358 00:17:12.279 --> 00:17:14.400 I didn't go off in a bit before my time, really, 359 00:17:14.440 --> 00:17:16.279 but I remember people talking about it. There was a 360 00:17:16.279 --> 00:17:19.319 woman called Penny maybe used to organize the single ones. 361 00:17:19.319 --> 00:17:21.599 People called it the midway room, but later that became 362 00:17:21.599 --> 00:17:24.440 a story room. Then nothing did it happen all at once? 363 00:17:25.240 --> 00:17:28.079 She shook her head, trying to catch the memory. It's funny. 364 00:17:28.160 --> 00:17:30.480 I can't really say when the A four stop being common. 365 00:17:30.519 --> 00:17:32.200 I don't think anyone meant to let it go. It's 366 00:17:32.240 --> 00:17:34.319 just that after a while people only referred to the 367 00:17:34.400 --> 00:17:37.119 lunge upstairs or the good nut spot. There wasn't an announcement. 368 00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:40.880 This fog puzzled me. A whole community failing to register 369 00:17:40.960 --> 00:17:44.039 the loss of a physical space. Not denial, not nostalgia, 370 00:17:44.440 --> 00:17:46.519 just a gentle omission, as if the floor had faded 371 00:17:46.519 --> 00:17:49.839 out of both memory and function. I began to question myself. 372 00:17:50.400 --> 00:17:52.559 Maybe I was pursuing a roundit whole made of paperwork 373 00:17:52.559 --> 00:17:55.920 and wishful thinking. My years of taking blueprints annotated by 374 00:17:55.920 --> 00:17:58.680 crowded urban could had primed me for contradiction. Maybe in 375 00:17:58.720 --> 00:18:01.440 this case my methods work against cents rather than toward it. 376 00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:03.680 But I didn't want to be alone in my doubts. 377 00:18:04.359 --> 00:18:06.599 On a hunch, I reached out to Henry, the former 378 00:18:06.640 --> 00:18:09.240 building superintendent, again, arranging to meet over weak coffee in 379 00:18:09.240 --> 00:18:12.279 the Wilmot lobby. He arrived in a stiff windbreaker, shifting 380 00:18:12.319 --> 00:18:14.920 on his good leg. You ever see floor plans where 381 00:18:14.920 --> 00:18:18.839 the levels don't match the elevator, I asked quietly. Henry 382 00:18:18.839 --> 00:18:22.119 smiled with a city man's wisdom. Floors move all the time. 383 00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:24.960 Oh no's renumber for lucky numbers or to match neighboring blocks. 384 00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:28.000 Sometimes it's simpler that way, less confusion with deliveries are male. 385 00:18:28.079 --> 00:18:30.400 But I tried to removing a floor. That's messy business, 386 00:18:30.720 --> 00:18:33.240 specially for the codes. Besides, it's not like the plumbing 387 00:18:33.319 --> 00:18:36.400 just vanishes. You hear about it whenever something leaks. He 388 00:18:36.519 --> 00:18:39.839 sit thinking we did sometimes compress space, lose a few 389 00:18:39.880 --> 00:18:42.000 inches in the hall. I'd bulk to a mechanical chase, 390 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:44.960 I remember, will not maintenance shaft changes, a bit of repainting, 391 00:18:45.079 --> 00:18:47.599 but nothing a bake. I don't remember codes ever giving 392 00:18:47.680 --> 00:18:49.960 up a whole level. Did you ever hear a residence 393 00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:52.480 talk about an eight floor? Hem re chewed it over 394 00:18:52.599 --> 00:18:56.920 the memory somewhere between skepticism and possibility. Maybe there was 395 00:18:56.960 --> 00:18:59.160 a fuss over the back staircase being blocked cheers ago. 396 00:18:59.319 --> 00:19:01.319 Now someone claim they had a locker on eight. We 397 00:19:01.440 --> 00:19:04.240 checked but didn't find much. Walls were typed stronger than expected. 398 00:19:04.359 --> 00:19:06.720 Most people figured it was developer gained, But now I 399 00:19:06.759 --> 00:19:10.079 doubt even the Nighai knows what happened. His account layered 400 00:19:10.079 --> 00:19:12.400 one more contradiction. If the deletion of the eighth floor 401 00:19:12.480 --> 00:19:14.880