My Architect: A Son's Journey Page #4

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you didn't know your dad at all.

I have a kid who's 18 years old,

and I didn't get to see

him from the time he was 8.

So it's kind of a

different story, isn't it?

Or is that the same story?

It's a different story,

because... well, if I had died,

I guess it would have

been the same story, huh?

Why hadn't you seen him for ten years?

Oh, it was a custody case.

- Did you want to keep him?

- Sure. My kid. My son.

I mean, I don't just

feel sympathy for you.

I feel sympathy for Lou.

- Why?

- 'Cause you were his son.

A man has feelings for his son.

I know there must have been some

kind of social convention that

somehow kept you apart.

And I don't want to make excuses

for that social convention.

Whatever it was, out with

it... I mean down with it.

That's bad. Whatever it was, it was bad.

It's just sad.

How accidental our

existences are, really,

and how full of

influence by circumstance.

I wonder if I'll ever find out

exactly what happened

that night in Penn Station.

For years, I thought maybe

my father hadn't really died,

that he was out there somewhere

living a parallel life.

I suppose that was because

he left no physical evidence

that he'd ever been in our house,

not even a bow tie

hanging in the closet.

I remember my father's hands.

Sometimes that's all I could see

when he would sit on my

bed and tell me stories

about his childhood late at night.

He said he was born on an

island with a castle on it

off the coast of

Estonia in 1901 or 1902.

He wasn't sure which.

He came on a steamboat to Philadelphia

with his family in 1906.

They were very poor, but Lou

was good at art and music.

His drawings won prizes,

and he made money playing piano

in the silent movie houses.

He told me Philadelphia

was a city where a small boy

could find what he wanted to

do for the rest of his life.

I went back to the neighborhood

in north Philadelphia

to find the places he

always talked about.

The whole family lived on

the top floor of a tenement.

And when a wealthy

lady gave Lou a piano,

there was no room left for his bed.

So he slept on the piano.

They couldn't afford

pencils for him to draw with,

but that was okay, because

you could make charcoal

by burning sticks in the backyard.

The kids teased him and

called him 'Scarface',

so he waited until the

last bell to go to school.

There was a girl he loved named Ada,

but she loved someone else.

The next part of the story

he didn't talk about much,

so I have to rely on

the architecture books.

He won a scholarship to the

University of Pennsylvania

and graduated with a degree

in architecture in 1924.

In 1930, he married Esther Israeli,

and their daughter, Sue Ann,

was born ten years later.

Esther worked in a medical lab

and supported the family

throughout the '30s and '40s

as Lou struggled to get commissions

and to find a style

he could call his own.

It was the era of the

new modern architecture:

sleek steel skyscrapers

and houses defined by walls of glass.

Lou tried to design that

way, but it never felt right.

In 1947, with Esther's help,

he started his own office

with several men and one woman.

He was almost 50 years old

and still hadn't found himself.

I wanted to show you

some sketches I made

when I was... when

I was in Rome.

Then in 1951, he was invited

to be architect in residence

at the American Academy in Rome

and to travel throughout

the ancient world.

What he saw changed his life.

These are the sketches I made

a long time ago in Egypt, you see.

Timelessness, monumentality.

That's what mattered.

When Lou got back, he finally

knew what he wanted to do:

build modern buildings that

had the feel and presence

of ancient ruins.

He'd also become deeply involved

with the woman working in the office,

a young architect named Anne Tyng.

She's the mother of

my half sister, Alex.

Lou was not a domestic person.

Let's face it. He never was. And...

He lived, really, in

the office, you know?

He had his bench where

he would take catnaps,

and he even sent his laundry

out from the office. I mean,

he was really... and,

of course, I know

that he crossed his home address

off on his... on his passport.

That's why they had a

hard time locating his...

in letting people know

that they found him dead

in 30th Street Station.

- Penn Station, New York.

- Penn Station.

My mother always said

that Lou had crossed off the address

because he planned to leave Esther and

come marry her.

I don't think he was

capable of doing that.

I mean, I'm sorry but

I really can't see him

doing something like that.

I realized he was not about to do that.

He always said that work

was the most important thing,

that you cannot depend

on human relations,

that, really, work is the

only thing you can count on.

Did you fall in love

with him right away? Lou?

- Sure, yeah.

- Why?

Well, he had tremendous charm.

I mean, he was charismatic,

and he was very accessible

and very endearing to people.

And when you got pregnant,

were you surprised?

Oh, yeah, it was a physical shock.

But that didn't seem to change his idea

of what he was going to

do. And he just would say,

"Well, you have to be

philosophical about it."

So, I mean, I could spend the rest

of my life being philosophical,

but there was not much

point in that. You know,

I had to do something.

And if he's not going to do

something about marrying me,

it's time I moved on.

But in spite

of myself I...

I mean, when I

left him, I didn't...

I didn't really want to.

So...

Next to arrive on track five

is the scheduled Buffalo to Trenton.

Looking at Anne on that platform,

I kept thinking of my own mother.

Neither one of them ever got married.

They both live alone.

They were both single mothers

when being a single

mother was a major scandal,

and they both believed

in my father completely.

Anne left Philadelphia in 1953

and went to Rome for a

year to have Alex in secret.

Lou wrote many letters

to her while she was away.

"Dearest Annie,

"last night, I dreamt about you.

"I was in our office telephoning.

"You walked in and mentioned to me

"that you could wait no longer.

"Your eyes somehow

were black and flashing,

"looking at me reprehensively.

"Annie, Annie, I think of you always.

"I miss so much our meetings together.

"I hope nothing changes

about our way of life."

Well, of course, it would change.

When Anne returned, she

collaborated with Lou

on a small community

center and bathhouse

in Trenton, New Jersey.

It was Lou's first chance

to fully apply his ideas

about ancient architecture.

Anne is 80 now and hasn't been

back to Trenton in 40 years.

Well, how do you go in?

- I think we go right in there, I think.

- Is this a door?

- Looks like it's boarded up.

- Was it not like that?

No, this was never closed like this.

Oh, there's a lock here.

- Hello?

- Hello?

Is it open?

Oh, hooray.

Thank you.

- Hi, I'm sorry about the holdup.

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