Rita Dove poem engraved on “The Dovecote” Passive House development in Harlem

Upon the suggestion of visionary architect David Finehirsch, Rita Dove wrote a poem for “The Dovecote,” a boutique condominium complex at 11 West 126th Street in Harlem, New York, that gave the building its name and now adorns its facade. (Incidentally, from 1947 until his death in 1967, Langston Hughes lived in a nearby 19th-century brownstone, at 20 East 127th Street.)

The mosaic is by Emmett Wigglesworth.