So, uhm, this would be the post that I thought I was writing before that last little ditty. I moved to New York in October 1996 in what was probably the luckiest 30-day period of my life. I wrote about this back in March after having left HBO and started work at Tribeca. Until I moved into 215 W. 83rd Street — between Broadway and Amsterdam smack-dab next to Cafe Lalo which was made famous in the treacly You’ve Got Mail, I had lived in eight places over the previous 12 years. I never really had a traditional childhood home, either. I wasn’t an army brat or anything, but my parents divorced when I was four, and with one exception, they each moved every few years. My mom and I lived in one apartment from the time of the divorce until I was 13, but other than that, until I left for UCLA (a week after my 17th birthday), my Dad never stayed in any apartment for more than four years, and my mom moved two more times. When I left for UCLA, I had a room in which to sleep at my mom’s, but it wasn’t exactly my room anymore what with her redecorating and all. Then came two years in the dorms, a studio apartment in Westwood for three years, a one bedroom in West Hollywood for a year, a shared two bedroom in Hollywood for about two years, and a one bedroom back in West Hollywood for seven months before my move to New York. In New York, I lucked into this really cheap, really tiny, studio sublet in the East Village which I stayed for nearly two years before moving to a much larger (but also three-times as expensive) studio in the West Village for another two years. Then, after my landlords wouldn’t renew my lease (they rented all their apartments in this coop building to Goldman-Sachs as furnished short-term corporate dwellings for reportedly $3500 per month, way more than twice as much as I was paying), I had a painful (shocking) apartment hunt (at least I was employed) before happening upon a rent-stabilized one bedroom on the upper west side which I figured I’d stay in for a couple years or so.
“A couple” turned into five.
I finally graduated NYU while living in this apartment. I met my now-ex-girlfriend while living in this apartment. I lived with a girlfriend (the same now-ex) for the first time — for two-and-a-half years — in this apartment. I put things into a closet that I would never use again in this apartment. As frustrated as I often got with the lack of any direct sunlight (both windows faced the brick wall of the next building; I was in the airshaft) or how long it took to travel to/from the UWS from anywhere downtown east of Sixth, and as “at home” as I felt in many other dwellings, I suppose I was never as settled anywhere else. Ever. My five years on W. 83rd turned out to be the second longest I had lived anywhere. Ever. In all of my 34 years.
Packing was hard. Stuff would rekindle memories. I found myself forgetting how to pack; forgetting what it was like to move — something which had always been a big pain in the ass but at least on some level I was used to it. My shredder got a work-out thanks to all the old financial documents I realized I probably didn’t need anymore. (Uhm, I closed my California Bank of America account — long before there was ever a B of A branch here — about eight years ago!) I found myself packing for a week yet still, even while staying awake the entire night before my movers came at 9:30 AM on Wed. 11/2, I didn’t get everything done. I finally gave-up, took a shower, waited for the movers and just told them to handle all the crap in the kitchen.
The next nearly-two-hours, I watched them nonchalantly carry out my boxes, my dresser, my bookshelves, my desk, my furniture — the entire space quickly become dismantled until finally it was just two empty rooms (and a lot of dust!) that looked much smaller, colder, darker and more anonymous than I had ever remembered. My ex-girlfriend had never seen the apartment empty — I had already lived there for about eight months before we met. I sent her a photo (yeah, we’re actually still friends) of the empty living room, and got the following reply: “OH MY GOD!!!! Don’t forget your mask! It looks so small. WOW. SAD!”
I had a hard time leaving. It took me about two days. I still had to return a few times to get some last items from the bathroom and kitchen, and I still had to clean-up a bit, mostly sweeping. Finally, on Friday 11/4, I went back to return the keys and pick-up the very last item — my bike. For some reason I thought it would be appropriate to actually ride from my old home to my new one: Upper West Side Manhattan to Clinton Hill Brooklyn. It turns out to be only 10 miles, and other than the “uphill” half of the Manhattan Bridge which nearly killed horribly-out-of-shape me, it was nice. What I didn’t count on was the bizarre (and sad) coincidence I would encounter upon going to the building for the last time.
On my floor — the sixth, for those of you keeping track of things like this — lived an old man. He lived alone. He was always very hunched over. I’m not the best at getting to know my neighbors, and I don’t know that I ever said more than five words to him. He had apparently lived in the building for something like 30 years. When I got to the building, I saw an ambulance and police car out front. I went in to get the elevator and passed the building super telling two cops that it was on the sixth floor. Apparently, some time in the previous two days, this man passed away, and he had just been found that morning. I can’t imagine how that building and neighborhood had changed over 30 years. (I also can’t imagine how inexpensive his apartment which had to be at least a one bedroom, and possibly a two, must have been.) My five years there seemed so long. I looked around the empty apartment; I grabbed my bike, rode down the elevator, went outside, took one look back and couldn’t help but think how I might have felt had I still lived there, knowing that this man — who had to be in his late-70s or early-80s, had died really just 20 feet or so (through walls, etc.) away from my bedroom. I know in the grand scheme of things the timing had nothing to do with, well … anything. But still, I couldn’t help but feeling like, as has been the case at different points through my life, there was something (for lack of a better term) connected.
I’ve been in my new apartment for more than three weeks and I’m still not settled. I wonder if even once I am, even after everything is unpacked and I’ve set-up my room the way I like and my roommates and I finish putting together the rest of the apartment, I wonder if it will ever actually become home. I can say with some certainty I won’t stay there for five years. And I’m just talking about the apartment — the adjustment to the entire neighborhood is another story completely. I get a ton of light in my bedroom — the antithesis of 83rd Street — yet it’s hard to imagine ever feeling as comfortable in this place, which is, I’m somewhat sure, simply because it’s still so new. But it’s hard to believe it’s almost been a month already. The old apartment still seems so fresh and yet so long ago at the same time.
I had never taken pictures of my old apartments — lived in or empty; at least not ones I had saved. I was determined not to make that mistake again, even if I was later to discover that I hadn’t taken all the ones I would have liked or gotten all the right angles. (And you know, in this digital era that’s a little inexcusable, but whatever.) I thought I would this time, if only to use as a record for myself. I guess I had never really recognized what was a “home.” I had always thought about feeling “at home” — something that was never the case in LA but was my natural state coming to New York. But “at home” and having “a home” I suppose are different things, and with all that was wrong with Apt. 6E next to Cafe Lalo, it really was home, as much as almost any other place in my life. So I took pictures. Before and after, you know … that’s what’s below — please excuse my crappy photoshop skills:
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NEXT UP: “Welcome to Brooklyn”
Out of Focus 