![[photo of the tower]](../pix/wizard-tower.jpg)
The wizard’s tower was built in 2003 and torn down in, I think, 2004 or 2005.
I’ve been regaling all acquaintance with the description of a mysterious building, which I watched being built recently, that I pass on my way to work. It is in the parking lot across 30th Street from 30th Street Station. Look for the little brown tower.
The tower is about three stories tall and one room wide. It is constructed in skyscraper style, with a steel skeleton and three walls of steel and two walls of glass. It is built on a thick concrete foundation that was poured directly onto the parking lot surface. No digging.
I called it three stories because there are two horizontal partitions inside for floors. The lower partition is too low to make the lowest story full-height, though; it’s more like a basement crawl space.
Now the fun part. The tower has a total of two doors to the outside, one above the other on the east side. You can reach the lower door if you have a short ladder, or if you’re agile enough to scramble up the foundation. The lower horizontal partition cuts through this door in the middle, so that you can crawl into the lower half or the upper half. One day I saw a guy with a ladder and a stack of plasterboard apparently finishing the interior; he was crawling into the upper half.
There are no stairs inside, or at least, I didn’t see any provision for them before the walls were put on. There is no apparent connection to water, sewer, electricity, telephone, or anything else that I’ve noticed. The windows, which must command an excellent view of the railyard if you’re on the upper level, face north. The building does not seem to be intended for ordinary use. It is finished, in the sense that they’re not currently working on it.
One might guess that it is associated with the skyscraper to be built nearby. [The “Cira Centre”, completed in 2005.] I’ve heard a few unlikely theories about what it could be:
I have a theory which, unlike any of these, explains all the data: This is the tower of a modern-day wizard, an industrial magician who will not be inconvenienced by the lack of amenities and who will draw inspiration, and perhaps even magical energy, from the local transportation infrastructure. Ah, the magical parking lot! Ah, the magical train station!
The wizard’s tower has a pentagonal floor plan, no doubt for arcane magical reasons. The northwest corner is a right angle, and the others are “artistic”. The latest news is that, though there still does not seem to be electricity or water, some kind of data access was installed. The wizard has a fancy internet connection. I saw the guys setting it up: They had the gear running on a portable generator, and then they took the generator away. I guess wizards don’t need to bring in power, they already have it.
Original version, September 2003 and March 2004.
Updated and added here March 2011.