Urban living
26/09/12 02:54
Church House, the home of the United Church of Christ’s national offices, is located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Connected to the 9-story office building is the UCC Hotel, managed by Radisson as the Radisson Gateway. The church owns the hotel and operates it as a separate corporation, with directors elected by the other corporations of the church. When we go to meetings at Church House, we are usually housed at the hotel, which constitutes a significant savings for the church as the rates the hotel charges the church are substantially less than those charged to the general public.
I suppose that on rainy days or the coldest and most blustery days in the winter, those who work in the building and those attending meetings at Church House appreciate the heated and enclosed passageway between the hotel and Church House. However, for some of us it can mean that we literally do not have the opportunity to go outside during meetings that last for several days.
I know that I wasn’t made for staying indoors all of the time.
One of the ways that I cope with the situation is to avoid the elevators. I have no problem riding elevators, but I need exercise and one way to get it is to take the stairs instead of the elevator. I guess I should mention that the hotel does have a fitness room and in that area are a number of machines that can be used for exercise. But I choose the stairs.
Church House is an older building that was headquarters to Ohio Bell for more than a half century before it became home to the United Church of Christ. There is a central staircase in the middle of the building with finished floors and iron grillwork on the hardwood railings. One walks through a couple of fire doors to enter the space and the stairs go around an open area, so you walk in a rectangle as you ascend or descend. There is also an external stairway for emergencies, but it is not available for daily use.
The Hotel was built in the 1990’s and has a very modern and decorated look, but the stairways were designed to be used as fire escapes, and are in no way decorated. They are steel stairways that go back and forth in a concrete chamber where sounds echo. The walls are mostly gray with the steel railings painted orange.
This trip all of our meetings have been on the 9th floor of Church House, so I get a good workout going from the ground level hotel connector or chapel to the meeting room. I am on the second floor of the hotel – the first time I’ve had a room this low in the building, so there is just one flight of stairs for me in the hotel.
Comparing the two buildings one might conclude that in the past people used the stairs more often than they do these days. Or perhaps that people are more likely to use the elevators in a hotel than in an office building. I suppose there are plenty of folks who fit a trip to the fitness room into their schedule and work out on the machines. Those who work in Church House every day probably are used to getting their exercise in enclosed spaces.
Most of the time I get the stairways to myself. Occasionally, I can hear one or two people in the stairwells as I go up or down, but the majority of the people use the elevators to get up and down. Being a person who likes a bit of time to myself, I enjoy the relatively empty space after spending hours in meetings.
I have tried, but I just can’t imagine what it would be like to work in Church House. The city has few housing options within walking distance, so virtually all of those who work at Church House commute by car and pay dearly for parking in a garage, or by public transportation and occasionally have to pay dearly for a cab when coming or going late at night or early in the morning. They say it is not safe to ride the train alone in Cleveland after dark. I have a couple of friends who work in Church House who are from the west, but their jobs involve a great deal of travel, so it wouldn’t be fair to describe them as ones who go to work in the same place every day.
Yesterday Governor Brown of California signed a bill that made it legal for driverless cars to drive on California state roads and highways. He went to Google’s Mountain View headquarters to sign the bill. There are no autonomous vehicles for sale to the general public, yet, but Google has been experimenting with driverless cars for some time now. I guess it is a wave of the future. Vehicles will safely transport their passengers to and from work without requiring input from human beings. With mobile computing, it might be possible for a person to work virtually all of their waking hours – or, presumably, to sleep during their commute.
I didn’t realize what a blessing it is to wake in our home in the hills and walk out to the garden virtually every day. I usually drive to work and many days I can do so with my windows down. Several times during my working day I go out to visit people, attend meetings or check the hospital or nursing homes. If I have some extra time, I can walk from the church to a coffee shop downtown. When I have time for exercise I can walk or bike on the greenbelt or head to the lake to paddle or row. There is ample hiking territory right out my back door or a short drive away.
When I need to go someplace farther away, I enjoy driving my car. The trips that require airline travel are infrequent enough to make that an interesting diversion as well. But even in the airline, I dream of being the pilot instead of just a passenger in that great aluminum tube. To be only another passenger in my own car doesn’t appeal to me at the present.
City life may be just the right thing for some people. But as I walk the hallways and climb the stairs here in Cleveland, I am very grateful that it isn’t my home.