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From the train platform at 30th Street Station, I always had this view of Cira Centre—of the offices, in particular, of Brandywine Realty Trust, a once and sometimes client. Waiting for the train on Monday evenings, I'd watch my friends across the way, huddled in meetings or hurrying back and forth, sitting alone with a pen in hand. I'd wonder what they were up to now, how their next buildings would shape the cityscape, what they would think of me if they turned and saw me—a teacher for a spell, not a consultant.

Yesterday I left academia and returned to the world of corporate work. I sat with my good friend (and co-author) Matt Emmens in the offices of Shire. Turned my thoughts toward an annual report and a news magazine. Buckled myself in for the ride. The thing about the life I live is that there are friends at every turn—people I am genuinely eager to see, stories I can thread my way into. Everywhere in this world, people are dreaming. They are putting up buildings and launching new drugs. Sometimes I stand by their side.

I spoke in a recent post of my privileged life—living literature, living community and ideas at the same time. I spoke of how sometimes luck walked me straight through the door of extraordinary people and let me stay awhile.

Dr. Constantine Papadakis, who served for 13 years as the president of Drexel University until his passing yesterday, was one of those big-thinking, renaissance-quality people. He was just 63, and today my city mourns his loss.

I spent time in the company of Dr. Papadakis during my work on a book commemorating the rise of Cira Centre, an historic glass building in West Philadelphia. Not a lot of time—just enough to understand and appreciate how deep a thinker he was. Our conversation was to focus on the emergence of West Philadelphia, on the shifting center of this Quaker City. It quickly spilled over into talk about Anthony Drexel and George Childs, two of my favorite historic Philadelphians. It moved from there into broader philosophical terrain, and when my team arrived a few weeks later to photograph the great doctor in that grand hall of Drexel, he was charismatic and charming all over again—more artifactual stories to tell, that bright smile on his handsome Greek face.

Drexel University is a vastly different place than it once was—anchored in with new architecture (for architecture was a Dr. Papadakis passion) by Michael Graves, I.M. Pei, and others; set off in many new directions. West Philadelphia has changed enormously, too—thanks to him, thanks to my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, and thanks to Dr. Papadakis's dear friend, Jerry Sweeney, the visionary CEO of Brandywine Realty Trust, who made certain that Cira rose above an old train yard and who set us free to write a book that led us through the door of souls like Dr. Papadakis.