Moran opens the curtains of his studio apartment on the fifth floor of Paquin Tower in Columbia on Nov. 1, 2021. Having lived in the building for two years, Moran has managed to make his apartment quite homey and has gotten to know the residents of the surrounding neighborhood quite well. “Most of the college kids are very nice, they’ll say good morning and they’ll talk to you.”
Chuckling after recollecting his time in Paquin Tower, Moran sits down on his couch directly across from the bed in his fifth-floor studio on Nov. 1. His apartment is decorated with beautiful drawings, momentos and other trinkets from different parts of his life. While in the military, Moran has lived in Seoul, Panama and Kentucky.
After being bitten by a brown recluse spider, Moran was unable to have the wound tended to, leading to a large scar on his leg. The bite, which was inflicted by one of the country’s most venomous spiders, left him with a long-last leg injury that prevents Moran from standing up for long periods of time. Despite the injury, Moran enjoys walking around downtown and chatting with those he meets along his journey.
A pastime of Moran is coloring, which is fairly evident when he presents his different finished pages. Fluorescent, whimsical, and detailed, Moran’s style is a unique take on the traditional coloring book with phrases like ‘Enjoy Life,’ being colored in bright neon ink. On Mondays, the residents of Paquin Tower will color together, which is one of several building-wide activities tenants can take part in.
A resident watches Moran as he attempts to construct a faux-Christmas Tree in the lobby of Paquin Tower in Columbia on Nov. 26, 2021. As the month of December approaches, the residents will work together to help decorate the lobby of the building which serves as a central gathering place for the people of Paquin.
Moran checks the stand of the Christmas Tree for any defects, his right hand sporting a small triton tattoo. The tattoo symbolizes his year-long duty patrolling the Korean DMZ. and is the motif used by his platoon. Like many other residents of Paquin Tower, his military history serves as a significant moment in his life. “We always had alerts and everything, where we would have to actually go and sit in a fox hole and watch the North Koreans.”
Michelle Busby lives with her mother and is a, seven-year resident of Paquin Tower, In her time in the building, she has become a good friend of Moran. “He is my best male friend, he’s got a good heart. All of the moments we have are special, he’s always doing something to help us out.”
Driving south along Route 63, passing the suburbs, chain restaurants, hotels, and gas stations of eastern Columbia, the skyline of downtown emerge on the horizon. Jesse Hall and its cupola, the Tiger Hotel, Memorial Union, and the city’s massive power plant take center stage, yet there is one building that surpasses the rest in height. Despite Paquin Tower not being the most visually stunning building in the city’s skyline, it is the tallest in Columbia at 172 feet, or 52 meters, and can be seen from a variety of spots throughout the city. Passing the building, it appears almost out of nowhere among the shotgun houses and abandoned beer pong tables of East Campus. For residents of Columbia, Paquin Tower is an anomaly, in that it is not only quite tall for a Midwestern college town but its residents are almost enigmatic.
Entering the building for the first time, is in effect, crossing the threshold into a discrete yet hospitable community of veterans, the elderly, and the disabled. In essence, it is similar to a small town, with a plethora of individuals who make up the unique cultural landscape up and down the 15 stories of the building. Stepping onto the elevator, you rise past floors of various residents all with their own unique stories, yet the fifth floor is home to a vibrant resident named Mike. Michael Moran, originally of Walworth County, Wisconsin not far from Chicago, is in effect one of the community organizers inside the building. Sporting a Cubs t-shirt and blue jeans, you step into his cozy studio apartment overlooking College Avenue and see a tiny black kitten, who he is sitting for another resident.
Sitting on his couch, Moran talks about two years in the complex, and his time seeing individuals enter, leave, and reenter the facility. Many of the residents are veterans of the United States military, who have been given a place to live, high above the streets. Moran, like many of the other residents, came to Paquin after military service. At one point, Moran was stationed in South Korea, helping to patrol the infamous Demilitarized Zone or DMZ along the border with North Korea. Nowadays, Moran enjoys coloring, walking downtown, and talking with his fellow residents of this vertical village.
