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“The fact that you think I’m kidding is cute.”
“How about I let you get a coffee on the way back to the gym and we cut the difference?”
“Fine,” Lydia agreed. “But I don’t want to hear one word about how much sugar goes into my cup.”
“Whatever you say, Cold Foam.”
The Manhattan Youth Center was a large, blocky building on the corner of 53rd Street and 10th Avenue, made up of lime-stained brick and crumbling asphalt yards surrounded by rusty chain-link fencing. Beyond the worn exterior, colorful artwork had been taped to every window, staring out at the street like Picasso-approved stained glass.
Lydia liked the place immediately, and not just because the morning site visit had cut Luke’s gym equipment walkthrough short. She’d absorbed about all she could handle when it came to leg presses and leg curls and leg extensions for today.
“Are you going to stand there all day?” Erik called, halfway up the front steps.
Lydia lifted her phone and snapped a picture of the front of the building from the sidewalk before hurrying after him and the rest of the group from Poletti’s. She ducked past Erik where he held the front door open for her. “Thanks.”
“You’re supposed to be holding doors open for me.”
“True. Age before beauty,” Lydia teased.
“You’re lucky I’m not fully caffeinated yet or my retort would probably sting.”
“Please,” Lydia whispered as they rejoined the group. “You’ve been working on the same comebacks since I was hired.”
Erik made a face but said nothing as the group was greeted by a woman named Miranda. She was the volunteer coordinator and as bubbly as newly popped champagne. “I’ll just ask everyone to sign in,” she said, gesturing to a large binder on a desk. “Then we’ll get started.”
Lydia joined the line behind Erik, scribbling her name and the reason for her visit into the binder before flashing her ID at the man behind the desk.
The interior of the building reminded Lydia of elementary school. The walls were covered in peeling white paint concealed behind posters and artwork. Miranda gestured down the hall, escorting them from one end of the building to the other, giving them little facts about the building and what the kids got up to while they were here.
Lydia poked her head into every room, snapping photos. The gymnasium was old, the paint on the walls a dusty red. The colorful lines on the floor that had once demarcated free throws and half-courts had been scuffed away by sneakers. A set of rickety bleachers butted up against the wall and a pair of basketball hoops with raggedy nets were installed at either end of the gymnasium, but nothing about the space felt run-down—only well loved.
Several classrooms had been repurposed into art studios, and the small library was equipped with a few computers. There was a kitchen where the kids learned to bake, and even a small dining hall with a low-lying stage.
“The kids love performing,” Miranda explained.
Lydia couldn’t help but imagine a small auditorium with soft theater seating, bright red curtains and a sturdier stage for the kids to perform on.
Unsurprisingly, the center was practically empty save for the handful of employees and volunteers tidying up from the before-school crowd. That meant they had a couple of uninterrupted hours to explore and sketch and design.
“What’s out there?” Lydia asked, gesturing to a closed door before Miranda set them free.
“That’s the outdoor yard, though it’s in rough shape. Seems to get worse after every winter, so the kids don’t use it much. Sort of wasted space if you ask me.” She unlocked one of the doors and swung it open. “Feel free to take a look.”
Lydia poked her head out, staring across the cracked asphalt. There were some cute chalk drawings near the door, but everything past that felt like a wasteland of untapped potential.
“Want to go exploring?” she asked Erik.
He gestured to his practically bald head. “I try to keep this whole situation out of the sun, but you have fun.”
While her colleagues broke off into groups, chattering and pulling out their sketchbooks, Lydia stepped through the door onto the uneven pavement. There were faded white lines painted on the ground and a weather-beaten basketball hoop at the far end of the yard. A few tiny green sprouts had forced their way through cracks in the ground and her mind started spinning.
She’d taken a lot of courses in school on sustainable building, and now she couldn’t help but think about how this redesign could improve the quality of life on this block. This wasn’t just a competition but also her opportunity to showcase how this building could be both environmentally responsible and resource efficient.
She walked across the yard and sat at a lonely picnic table. From her position, she had a good view of the building’s exterior structure. She placed her sketchbook on the table and dug a pencil out of her shoulder bag, imagining a range of solar panels on the roof along with a rooftop garden that could harvest rainwater for irrigation. That would help reduce stormwater runoff and the urban heat island effect. Lydia scribbled the words onto the corner of her page. She might not be able to change all of Manhattan, but she could make an impact on this block, with this building.
She heard the door open and close but didn’t look up. She couldn’t. It had been a long time since she’d been this thrilled about a project, and her mind was so full she wanted to finish getting everything on paper before the ideas leaked out her ears. That was, until a shadow eclipsed her sketchbook, forcing her to stop.
“Hey, running buddy.”
