THE SEAGRAM BUILDING and I are about the same age, but as my hair continues to silver and the parentheses bracketing my mouth make me ever more parenthetical to the young, my favorite New York skyscraper never ages. As the exemplar of mid-century Modernism, Mies van der Rohe’s 38-story steel and glass edifice on Park Avenue is all about not showing its years (it was born in 1958). In referencing the agelessness of Bobby, the Peter Pan–like character in Stephen Sondheim’s Company, a lyric states: “You know what comes to mind every time I see him? The Seagram Building.”
David Masello is a poet and cultural critic based in New York City.
