The Story

My face is drawn upwards, to a once ornate concert hall ceiling. My eyes soak in layers of crown molding and decorative gold accents. The curved stage, the crisp acoustics, and the presence of 150 years of history all light up my face. Then a basketball bounces past my feet and I am ushered back to the reality of the once-concert hall, now gymnasium of the Salem YMCA. The molding is faded. The balcony is absent. The floor is stripped and painted with foul and 3 point lines. But the story is thick in the air on Essex St. The grand, marble staircase is immediately reminiscent of the Titanic- Ames Hall is a ship of epic proportions. Though sunk, it is aching and groaning with the potential of what it once was, and ought to be again.