The bannister was the wooden railing that ran up the staircase. Oak or walnut or something nobody bothered to identify. Smooth from a hundred years of hands. Every tenant who ever climbed those stairs grabbed the bannister and left a little of themselves on the wood. The bannister was the building's handshake going up and its goodbye coming down. You held on and you climbed and the wood was warm because somebody had just been there.

Kids slid down the bannister. That was the law. You could not have a bannister and not slide down it. You threw your leg over and you pushed off and the wood was slick from all the hands and you flew down two flights in three seconds and you hit the newel post at the bottom and the post shook and the super yelled. The bannister was the building's fastest transportation system. Faster than the stairs. Faster than the elevator. You just had to trust the wood.

The bannister creaked. Every section had its own sound. You grabbed it and it groaned and you could hear it shift on the brackets where it bolted to the wall. The brackets loosened over the years. The plaster cracked around the screws. The super tightened them and the plaster cracked worse. The bannister was pulling away from the wall one tenant at a time.

My grandmother used the bannister to get to her apartment on the fourth floor. She held that railing with both hands and she pulled herself up step by step. The bannister was her engine. Without it she did not climb. She knew every loose spot, every bracket that wobbled. She knew the bannister the way a blind person knows a room. By touch. By trust. By repetition.

They replaced the bannister with a metal railing. Aluminum tube bolted to the wall with industrial brackets. The metal is cold. The metal does not remember your hand. The metal does not creak or warm up or wear smooth. The metal is efficient and correct and it will never break. But you cannot slide down it. And it will never know your grandmother's grip.

See also: Newel Post, Stairwell