In the cab to the Upper East Side that evening, crossing 42nd Street along Bryant Park, we paused in traffic and I saw misshapen clouds reflected in the slightly curved glass wall of a striking sixty story skyscraper. The tower’s soaring front was divided by a series of razor-thin horizontal and vertical beams creating a crisscross pattern that brought to mind railroad tracks trailing up to the sky. The clouds, drifting past slowly in the cold early evening, were reflected and ever changing. It was a magnificent construction, and its dramatic top curve had similarities to my building. As a cloud the shape of a serpent’s tale moved across the glass, I had an urgent desire to get back to my work. I had feared that, since Tad was the catalyst for my creativity, the absence of him would mean t
