Some attempt had been made to tart up the exterior by adding an ornamental birdbath and two iron benches of the sort that leave marks on the seat of your pants. The parking lot was a stern black and smelled as though the asphalt had just been redone. In the narrow front yard, ivy formed a dense carpet of green that had swarmed up the sides of the building, across the windows, and over the edge of the roof. In a year, the place would be covered by a jungle of green, a low amorphous mound like a lost Mayan pyramid. Inside, the lobby was painted in bright primary colors. Maybe the elderly, like babies, were thought to benefit from the stimulation of strong hues. In the far corner, someone had taken a fake Christmas tree from its box and had gone so far as to stick the aluminum “branches” in the requisite holes. The conformation of branches looked about as realistic as recently transplanted hair plugs. So far, there were no ornaments and no tree lights. With so little late-afternoon sunlight penetrating the windowpanes, the overall effect was cheerless.
