Dear First & Franklin,

While you have been there my entire life, it was in my late teens when I truly began to notice you. In the 90s, I moved into my first apartment on the 800 block of Park Avenue and had the pleasure of admiring you from across the street every day for a year. Your maturity and seductive dark brown and golden façade exude confidence as you continue to be the tallest of your kind at 273 feet.

You are more than 160 years old, and perhaps that is why I am so smitten by you. I have never been inside your grandiose doors, but the photos I have seen of what you look like inside are spectacular. Although not a religious person, when I see you, whether from my eighth-floor apartment or when walking by, your pronounced spire dominating Baltimore’s sky arouses my spirituality. Looking at you every day from my bedroom window is one of the great pleasures of where I live right now. You are so beautiful, and I thought you should know that I am completely madly in love with your seductive lines and curves, and your inclusive embrace.

You have meant a great deal to many people in our community, even a dear friend of mine was your member some time ago. She loved you very much! Your compassion is inspiring. I am most familiar with your Purple Ribbon Project as our family takes the time to slow down on our walks to read the names, as you display them, of those whose lives have been lost to violence. Your messages of loving everyone “regardless of gender expression, gender identity, and sexual orientation,” remembering those whom we have lost to gross injustices, and helping those near and far continue to feed my admiration for you.

With great awe,

Nayeli Garcia Mowbray