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Upper West Side Buildings

November 22, 2005 By pia

There’s a soaking rain that makes it feel much later than 8:30; I want to get into bed and play possum for a month or three. But life, it keeps getting in the way of such a solitary egotistical pursuit. In the morning I have yet another dentist appointment for implants. Now that the rods are in I feel like my own heavy metal band.

I would have mortgaged my soul to do this. Fortunately I didn’t have to. It’s tedious, has taken forever, and has taught me to understand “it is what it is.” Patience, man. It’s all about patience.

Usually I walk at night; I have turned into a nocturnal creature because the streets are less crowded, and the chain stores don’t glare out at me. It seems more like the old Upper West Side, the one that had grit and that I fell in love with. Panic in Needle Park was filmed in a park on West 72nd where the new subway stop is. It is beautiful, inviting and I have never sat there.

Needle Park was danger; it was junkies and bag people with much mental baggage.

A doctor’s widow lived on the first floor of Lucia’s building. Somehow crack dealers moved in and took over her life. When Lucia was robbed, the police told her they knew who was responsible but couldn’t prove it.

There were small kids in the buiding; Little Luce would be born several years later. She turned 15 yesterday and wouldn’t really be shocked to know that there once were crack syringes all over the first floor and the stoop we always sit on and watch the world go by.

The people in the building arranged for the widow to be moved to an adult facility, and were able to have the crack dealers evicted. The woman was killed by a bus a week after moving.

Lucia’s building is my favorite city apartment building. There’s a core group who have been there forever. Gods Love; we deliver, a large AIDS organization, began in the building. I have had friends in that building since I first moved to Manhattan. It is my history too.

My building is old also. But it’s fancier. Its story is similiar; most buildings on the Upper West Side have faded glory stories and rejuvenation ones too. My building had a rent strike before it became a coop; now it’s a big deal. Lucia’s building remained a rental because the owners wanted to keep the stores under it.

Though I love my acidic memories I am very grateful for the present. While I don’t sit on the benches in the new park, I walk down to the river to sit and walk even late at night during spring and summer. In late fall and winter I only go down during the day. Yes I would rather be safe.

I have talked often of how I’m falling out of love with Manhattan, and I am. But I will always desire it.

Filed Under: New York Stories Tagged With: New York Stories

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Comments

  1. BeckEye says

    November 22, 2005 at 8:54 am

    Know anyone who’s looking for a roommate? It’s amazing the number of listings I find on Craigslist along these lines, “Athletic guy, day trader looking for a female roommate, cheap rent in exchange for ‘favors’, include pic.” EEEEW and eeew. What is wrong with men today? Are they all turning into Richard Gere’s character in Pretty Woman? And are there women who would actually consider this a suitable living arrangement?

  2. Junebugg says

    November 22, 2005 at 9:27 am

    I can’t imagine what it’s like to live in your world. I’ve always lived where you can see the stars at night and if you walk, it’s on the side of the road, no sidewalks out here. I admit that you have options that I’ll never see but I have freedom that I love. Never saw a crack needle, although I know places within 25 miles where they’re common. I love hearing about your life, but I believe I’ll keep mine.

  3. Girl on the Blog says

    November 22, 2005 at 11:36 am

    Pia… to be in your shoes for a day… 🙂

  4. actonbell says

    November 22, 2005 at 5:05 pm

    You make Manhattan sound like a magical place, and this explains why you’ll always desire it. I’ve known a couple people from NYC who missed it very much after they left. It must be the daily super-stimulation–the suburbs would seem so boring, in comparison!
    My FIL got implants, too, and he was VERY happy with them–though it’s certainly a long process. May this go quickly for you:)

  5. Dawn says

    November 22, 2005 at 6:13 pm

    Patience, someday I’ll learn that lesson.

    I’m making the move back to NY next Spring. Ulster County/New Paltz.

    Tell ya what, let’s set up an exchange. When we need an injection of something diff, we do a dweeling swap.

    You get some country and I get some city!

  6. Lisa says

    November 22, 2005 at 8:19 pm

    you capture the mystique of the city perfectly, while still reminding me of the horrors.

  7. Doug says

    November 22, 2005 at 10:08 pm

    The last sentence is golden. And I got a kick out of “Patience, man. It’s all about patience.” That wasn’t your voice which made it funnier.

  8. Michele says

    November 22, 2005 at 10:34 pm

    Hello Pia,
    What a wonderfully glorious post. Although I have never lived in New York, I do love to visit and your poetic writing made me momentarily long to visit once again.

    What a great blog you have. Thank you so much for visiting mine. Now, I must blogroll you.

  9. dan says

    November 22, 2005 at 10:40 pm

    For the first comment, no, not all men are like that. Just most of us.

    Is this where we get the old adage, it’s a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there? It sounds like you’re more comfortable where you are now, Pia. And that’s a victory in itself.

  10. The Fat Lady Sings says

    November 22, 2005 at 11:01 pm

    To every thing there is a season. Me – I have always loved having room around me. Living near a city, but not in it. However, I am an adaptable creature – so I could be comfortable just about anywhere. That’s something my friends just don’t get – why I have no fear of the new, or different. I have lived here in the states, in Europe and in Asia, and it’s all the same to me – different food, different culture, interesting lifestyles, but people are people, in any language.

    Is New York like a lodestone for you? Something that will always draw you hence? Home, in a word. For me, that would have to be the sea. I am happiest whenever there is the scent of salt in the air. What quality draws you to your home the most? Every place has a feeling – what is it about the Upper West Side that seduces you so completely?

  11. Angela says

    November 23, 2005 at 1:24 am

    You know, it seems that even as people “grow out” of New York when they move away they always feel as though they’ve moved away from what will always be their true home. It’s an interesting relationship the place has with it’s inhabitants.

    Michele sent me!

  12. Bone says

    November 23, 2005 at 2:16 am

    Wondering if you fell out of love with it because you changed, or because it changed, or both, or something else…

    Loved this one, too.

  13. sophie says

    November 23, 2005 at 5:19 am

    Thanks so much for coming to my place. I love the way you capture the beauty and the flaws of your city.

  14. OldOldLady Of The Hills says

    November 23, 2005 at 6:44 am

    Ohhh I love love LOVE this post! You truly evoke all my New York feelings describing the buildings and the streets…I understand falling out of love with NY but still desiring it….I always think of New York with such nostalgia…but, then whenI am there…I think…’How does anybody live here?’…And yet…and yet! There is so much to love about New York; The Theatre!!! Well, pribably that’s #1 for me. The way New York looks at Christmastime…..Magical!
    Thank you Pia for reminding me of soooo much that I love, and much that I would love to forget, too! (lol)

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About Me

I live in the South, not South Florida, a few blocks from the ocean, and two blocks from the main street. It's called Main Street. Amazes me too.

I'm from New York. I mostly lived in the Mid-Upper East Side, and the heart of the Upper West Side. It amazes me when people talk about how scared they were of Times Square in the 1970's and 1980's.

As my mother said: "know the streets, look out and you'll be fine."

What was scary was the invasion of the crack dens into "good buildings in good 'hoods." And the greedy landlords who did everything they could to get good tenants out of buildings.

I'm a Long Island girl, and proud of it now.
Then I hated everything about the suburbs. Yet somehow I lived in a few great Long Island Sound towns after high school.

Go to archives "August 2004" if you want to begin with the first posts.

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