A middle-aged white man with a white beard and white ponytail rummages through a garbage can. Another man, in a gray suit and a black tie, sets a black briefcase next to his shiny black shoes on the ground. He sits on a wooden bench and chows down on a salad bowl. On the eastern side of the circle, with their heads craned over a chessboard table, two black men argue over something. Two Asian men, both donning bright colors, oscillate toward the fountain. And two Hispanic women sit on the edge of the pool at the fountain, eyes sparkling and hungry for chatter…

…when the white ponytailed man strides before me, holding a half-full cup of ice coffee in one hand and a wrinkled, half-eaten sandwich in the other, I’m lonely no more. He walks along the circumference, sits on a bench and proudly enjoys his lunch. It doesn’t take long before the Asian couple saunter hand in hand from the fountain. And the man in the suit, now sated and rested, with one hand clutching his suitcase and the other fondling an iPhone, leaves the circle, perhaps headed to a bank to deposit the contents of his suitcase.