The skylight was a square of glass at the top of the stairwell. Five flights up you looked and there it was. A piece of sky framed in iron. The sun came through the skylight and fell down the stairwell and hit the bottom floor like a spotlight with no stage. The skylight was the building's one window that nobody owned. It belonged to everybody because it belonged to the stairwell.

The skylight leaked. Every skylight leaked. The rain came through the edges where the putty cracked and the water ran down the wall of the top floor and left a stain shaped like a river on a map. The super went up to the roof and he put tar around the frame and the tar held for a season and then the skylight leaked again. The skylight was the building's oldest argument with the weather and the weather always won.

You could hear the rain on the skylight from any floor. A sound like fingers on a table. The rain hit the glass and the sound traveled down the stairwell and you knew it was raining before you looked outside. The skylight was the building's weather report. It did not need a forecast. It reported in real time.

In summer the skylight turned the stairwell into an oven. The sun came through the glass and the glass magnified the heat and the top floor was ten degrees hotter than the bottom. You climbed the stairs and you climbed into the heat and by the time you reached the fifth floor you were sweating. The skylight gave light and the price of light was heat and nobody complained because the alternative was a stairwell with no sky.

They painted over the skylight. Or they put a board over it. Or they sealed it when the building converted to central air and nobody needed the ventilation. The stairwell went dark. The river stain dried up. The rain fell on the roof and nobody heard it. The skylight was the one hole in the building that let the outside in and they closed it because efficiency does not need a view.

See also: Stairwell, Tenement Roof