No rest for the weary. After the past several days of double- and weekend–blogging, today is the start of another series of Gothamist Interviews by my friend Lily and myself. We didn’t set out to do this, but this week turned into a bit of girl power representin’.
We kick off with someone I met completely by accident. It was New Year’s Eve, and my girlfriend and I had been very lazy about deciding what to do this year. New Year’s has almost become the biggest of peer-pressure holidays; I didn’t even want to do anything, but I would feel pathetic if we didn’t. Anyway, we had plans to have some dinner in Little Italy with friends. Another friend decided to come along on the way to a party — she asked us if we wanted to go with her, and we said, Why not?
The party was at this really cute apartment on Elizabeth Street with its own private backyard patio. I wanted to move in. I found myself talking to a woman named Alex Bandon who is a Senior Editor at This Old House magazine. Since we both work for the same monolithic corporate entity, we suddenly were sharing our frustrations over worthless stock options. She’s also been a freelance writer for years, having done pieces for, among other publications, the New York Times and the Times Magazine, and writing about everything from film to food to real estate. (She wrote a piece called “Calculating a ‘Best and Final’ Offer” for Sunday’s “Real Estate” section.)
But it was when Alex started telling me about her fascination with “backhouses” that I suddenly said to myself, Hey, we should interview her! Backhouses are (primarily) the old carriage houses that were built when the City was a much different kind of place: when mansions had servant’s quarters and farms had barns. They used to be everywhere, but now, while a few are scattered in neighborhoods like Williamsburg and Carroll Gardens, the largest number are in the West Village where 75 still stand and serve as hidden, slightly-more-peaceful dwellings for the lucky few who inhabit them. She wrote a story about them for the Times about two years ago, and now she wants to write a book. (Publishing execs take note!) I’m hoping she’s given the chance to do so.
But why listen to me babble about something I don’t know much about. Alex talks plenty about these hidden gems as well as several other interesting topics over at her interview, so give a click and check it out.
Out of Focus 