© Photo Credit to Haley L Richter

There’s a stretch on I-76 where, if you glance up at just the right time, you’ll catch a cluster of tall, blinking towers off in the distance—standing like quiet sentinels over the city. To most, they’re just part of the background, unnoticed steel spires piercing the skyline. But to me, they’ve always meant something more.

I used to live in Bala Cynwyd. It’s a town that hums with calm energy—a perfect balance between the pace of the city and the peace of the suburbs. Just down the road is Manayunk, where I spent countless evenings walking along the canal, hopping between bars and cafés, and watching the way the lights of the city reflected off the Schuylkill River. But it’s the Roxborough antennas that stuck with me most.

I first noticed them when I started commuting along 76. No matter the hour, those blinking red lights were always there—steady, constant. They became my marker. When I saw them, I knew I was close to home.

Later, after I moved away, I found myself returning to that spot. Not to Bala Cynwyd exactly, and not always to Manayunk, but to that space beneath the towers. I’d lie on the grass or sit on the hood of my car, looking up, letting the rhythm of the blinking lights settle something inside me. It’s hard to explain, but standing there under those towering spires, I feel like I belong—like I’m plugged back into the part of myself that first called this place home.

We all need a third place—a space that isn’t work or home but still feels like it understands us. For some, it’s a coffee shop, a park, a bookstore. For me, it’s this oddly poetic tangle of metal and signal. The Roxborough antennas. My north star, my memory post, my quiet little corner of clarity.

Homesickness is tricky. It’s not just about missing a location. It’s about missing a version of yourself that existed in that place. And somehow, standing under those antennas, I get a glimpse of that version again.

So if you ever find yourself driving down 76 and you spot those blinking lights, take a moment. Think about what places anchor you, where your third place might be. You might find, as I did, that home isn’t always a house—it can be a sky filled with blinking lights, a memory rising up like a signal from the past, guiding you back to yourself.