Closing of Gallery will disrupt one 75-year-old retired musician's routine

The thousands of people who walked through the Gallery each day, hurrying to catch a train or get to a meeting, likely never noticed Carlos Morales sitting outside McDonald's and nursing a cup of coffee. He noticed them, though.

For 11 years the 75-year-old retired musician would rise at 6:30 a.m., make coffee and eggs, and dress to kill - "always showered, clean-shaven, and perfumed," he said.

He would catch the 64 bus outside his apartment in Belmont, then transfer to the Market-Frankford Line, heading underground to the Gallery with an ETA of 8:30.

There he'd pick up another cup of java at McDonald's for 76 cents and nurse it for hours at a food court table, talking, thinking, watching the denizens of his familiar world disappear one by one.

When the kiosks began to close last winter, in anticipation of the Gallery's $325 million makeover, Morales remained unfazed.

Then the food court began emptying. And so did his possibilities. When McDonald's shuttered this summer, and the tables outside its counters disappeared, he moved down to some chairs outside Tiffany's Bakery. A day or two later, those seats went, as well.

So he moved to a ledge near Century 21, playing an uninviting game of musical chairs, waiting until the east end of the mall shuts completely, likely within days.

In the Gallery's death throes, Carlos Morales is the last man sitting.

"You see a lot of pretty women here," the Puerto Rican native said in Spanish one recent day, sitting cross-legged on his wall, slacks pressed, his steel-gray hair combed back. "It keeps me entertained."

What started off for him as a place to keep warm in the winter and cool in the summer became a nice break from his studio apartment. He watched the crowds come and go, admiring and criticizing people to himself. He would chat with whoever was eager to listen to the tales of his past and stories of other Gallery regulars.

There was Romeo, an elderly former sailor from Puerto Rico, and a middle-aged Asian man who went by Tom.

Morales and Romeo taught Tom to speak Spanish.

"One day he came up to me and said he wanted to learn Spanish. . . . Little by little he's been learning," Morales said. As if on cue, Tom walked up to Morales and sat down to chat.

"Maestro," Tom said, pointing to Morales, and his teacher gave a slight smile.

Morales has watched the Gallery transform from bad to worse as businesses shuttered. "I met a lot of people," he said. "Little by little they left. Some became enemies with the people here. . . . A lot moved to Florida."

Like a good Philadelphian, Morales savors complaining about how terrible the city is. In particular, his Gallery.

Yet, he continued to return. Most weekdays and weekends, rain or shine.

He moved to the city from California by himself in 2001, after his second divorce. He had friends here. But he hadn't realized that one of his pals had died several years before. One had left the state and another was imprisoned. "It was a disaster coming here," he said.

Just a few months short of 62, he decided to stay and retire in Philadelphia anyway. He lives off his Social Security checks, a reward for decades of handy work at various companies.

He also was a trio musician in his younger years, playing a small guitar called a requinto.

Morales wants to leave Philadelphia but fears he has too little money to live comfortably in a better place. His seven children, most in California and Texas, are grown. They have not maintained much of a relationship with him.

So Morales' dream is to move to Spain, where he once lived for five months, or to a big house in Puerto Rico, overlooking the beach.

Maybe one day he will get lucky with the lottery, he said, a crumbled Powerball ticket discarded next to him.

Until then, he still drops by the cavernous, near-empty Gallery. You can find him some of these last mornings, sticking to his endangered routine - sitting on one of the faux-marble stools facing the darkened stores, watching the few travelers, chatting amiably - then going home and starting it all over again.

cvargas@phillynews.com

215-854-5520

@InqCVargas