Everything must change
I've been a Queens girl my whole life, mostly in Flushing. The first ten years of my life my parents rented the second floor of a two family house on Juniper Avenue. It was a green house that didn't have aluminum siding but was rough and textured. It was an odd layout inside because the only bedroom upstairs was separate from the rest of the apartment. The living room, kitchen and bathroom were through the door directly at the top of the stairs. You walked up the staircase and a sharp left would take you to the bedroom. Initially my crib was in there. As I got older, I would sleep half the night in my parents' bed and then when Dad finished watching the news at 11:30, he'd wake me, take me to the bathroom and then I'd sleep the rest of the night on the couch bed. I didn't have my own room until we moved to the house my mother lives in now.
We had nice enough landlords though my dad always asked me to play quietly so as not to bother them. I remember the old man who owned the house and his son Zeke, who everyone called "Uncle Andy". They were Italian and they had a large gazebo/trellis setup in the yard that my friends and I would play under, which was covered in grape vines. Each year the elder man would make wine from the grapes and he'd let us eat some of the ones he didn't use. They grew both white and red grapes that were round and tart and had seeds. The driveway was covered in gravel and my friends used to marvel at the fact that I could run on it barefoot and it didn't hurt.
We moved in the summer of '76, when I was 10 and a half, to Negundo Avenue. It was ironic because I started Junior High that September and the school was literally yards away from the house on Juniper. What would have been a roll out of bed was now a 15 minute walk but at least I got to say hello to my former neighbors and friends as I went to and from school.
Bree now attends Junior High at the same school I did so we pass the house often. Both the old man and his son are dead now but Uncle Andy's niece, Lulu, now owns the house. The grapes and the gazebo are long gone but the house looks exactly the same outside, still green and textured.
Today, as we were driving down Juniper Avenue to school, Bree noticed there was a large blue tarp over the roof of the house. When we drove past it we noticed all the windows are boarded up. I guess Lulu finally sold it like she said she might. It looks likely they are tearing down my childhood home. So many good memories there and I'm crying because soon, it too will be gone.
We had nice enough landlords though my dad always asked me to play quietly so as not to bother them. I remember the old man who owned the house and his son Zeke, who everyone called "Uncle Andy". They were Italian and they had a large gazebo/trellis setup in the yard that my friends and I would play under, which was covered in grape vines. Each year the elder man would make wine from the grapes and he'd let us eat some of the ones he didn't use. They grew both white and red grapes that were round and tart and had seeds. The driveway was covered in gravel and my friends used to marvel at the fact that I could run on it barefoot and it didn't hurt.
We moved in the summer of '76, when I was 10 and a half, to Negundo Avenue. It was ironic because I started Junior High that September and the school was literally yards away from the house on Juniper. What would have been a roll out of bed was now a 15 minute walk but at least I got to say hello to my former neighbors and friends as I went to and from school.
Bree now attends Junior High at the same school I did so we pass the house often. Both the old man and his son are dead now but Uncle Andy's niece, Lulu, now owns the house. The grapes and the gazebo are long gone but the house looks exactly the same outside, still green and textured.
Today, as we were driving down Juniper Avenue to school, Bree noticed there was a large blue tarp over the roof of the house. When we drove past it we noticed all the windows are boarded up. I guess Lulu finally sold it like she said she might. It looks likely they are tearing down my childhood home. So many good memories there and I'm crying because soon, it too will be gone.