The cupola was a small tower on top of the roof. A square or octagonal room with windows on all sides that sat on the ridge like a crown. The cupola was the building's watchtower. You climbed the stairs past the top floor and through a hatch and up a ladder and you were in the cupola and you could see in every direction. The cupola was the highest room in the neighborhood. The building put a room on its head and called it architecture.

The cupola let the heat out. Hot air rose through the building and collected in the cupola and the cupola windows let the hot air escape. The cupola was the building's exhaust. Before air conditioning the cupola was the only thing between a top-floor apartment and heat stroke. You opened the cupola windows and the building exhaled and the stairwell became a chimney drawing cool air up from the basement. The cupola understood thermodynamics before anybody gave it a name.

The cupola had a weathervane. A metal rooster or an arrow or a ship on a rod that turned with the wind. The weathervane on the cupola was the building's compass. You looked up at the cupola and the weathervane told you which way the wind was blowing and whether the rain was coming from the east. The weathervane was the building's opinion about the weather. The smartphone weather app gives you the same information without the opinion. The opinion was the better part.

Kids dared each other to climb to the cupola. The cupola was the summit of the building and the summit was the dare. You climbed the ladder through the hatch and you were in the cupola and the whole neighborhood was below you and for one minute you were the tallest person on the block. The cupola was the building's trophy room and the trophy was the view. You earned the view by climbing. The elevator does not give you the view. The elevator gives you the floor.

They removed the cupola. The building code said the cupola was a fire hazard or a structural liability or both and the landlord took it down and put a flat cap on the roof where the cupola used to be. The building lost its crown. A building without a cupola is a head without a hat. The building used to have a room that looked at the sky. Now the building has a cap that keeps the rain out. The cap is practical. The cupola was ambitious. We stopped building ambitious and started building practical and nobody noticed the sky got farther away.

See also: Rooftop Antenna, Chimney Cap