I can't spare much change
ok, the subject may be a stretch...
Kate thinks I'm being melodramatic when I refer to a business or place of interest and then tell her that it's GONE. "Remember that little Mom & Pop liquor store that used to be eight blocks away? GONE!" It happens with enough frequency that it sorta became our private joke. But we see an underlying unfunnyness about it and I believe it's different for each of us. Regardless, it's happening around me all of the time and it makes me feel... anxious. Is there a feeling that precedes nostalgia? What is the appropriate emotion before it's time to feel nostalgic about something that has yet to dissolve into the past?
So, there are the little losses. Like the hypothetical liquor store that may have been there for 25+ years. Or the below-street-level mega-supermarket whose somewhat bitter farewell-to-our-loyal-customers letter posted on it's chained doors blamed the 3-million-dollar-a-year nut it had to cover for its rent. Then, there's bigger stuff, like the Apple Bank building on B'way and 73rd being converted to co-ops. How about The Plaza Hotel getting gutted? Or The Russian Tea Room, which closed, is still empty and still has the signage in place as if nothing tragic ever happened?
Then there's personal stuff. Tower Records is closing; big sale. Ok, my heart is not exactly breaking over that, but it was a neighborhood fixture since that building went up. And it has spectacular air-conditioning for quick relief on those really hot, stifling summer days.
The building that I live in is being managed by a holding company, ever since the Mom & Pop landlords croaked. It was actually handed down to their hell-spawn offspring who couldn't unload it fast enough for some unholy lump sum. Tenants have been offered paltry sums to surrender their apt.s. Eighty six units altogether. Today, some thirty something are now vacant. I'm starting to get the eerie feeling that I'm living on a ghost ship. There are moving trucks parked outside the building almost every month. Sometimes, consecutive weekends. There are some apt.s that house 3 generations of tenants. Some are among the first to ever have lived here. Many aren't. My family moved here when I startetd high school. My dad was the superintendant. He worked until he died here. My mom lives in the apartment directly above me. She is the only tenant now on her wing of her floor of the building. What's worse than having crazy, eccentric neighbors? No neighbors? It's fucked up.
Kate thinks I'm being melodramatic when I refer to a business or place of interest and then tell her that it's GONE. "Remember that little Mom & Pop liquor store that used to be eight blocks away? GONE!" It happens with enough frequency that it sorta became our private joke. But we see an underlying unfunnyness about it and I believe it's different for each of us. Regardless, it's happening around me all of the time and it makes me feel... anxious. Is there a feeling that precedes nostalgia? What is the appropriate emotion before it's time to feel nostalgic about something that has yet to dissolve into the past?
So, there are the little losses. Like the hypothetical liquor store that may have been there for 25+ years. Or the below-street-level mega-supermarket whose somewhat bitter farewell-to-our-loyal-customers letter posted on it's chained doors blamed the 3-million-dollar-a-year nut it had to cover for its rent. Then, there's bigger stuff, like the Apple Bank building on B'way and 73rd being converted to co-ops. How about The Plaza Hotel getting gutted? Or The Russian Tea Room, which closed, is still empty and still has the signage in place as if nothing tragic ever happened?
Then there's personal stuff. Tower Records is closing; big sale. Ok, my heart is not exactly breaking over that, but it was a neighborhood fixture since that building went up. And it has spectacular air-conditioning for quick relief on those really hot, stifling summer days.
The building that I live in is being managed by a holding company, ever since the Mom & Pop landlords croaked. It was actually handed down to their hell-spawn offspring who couldn't unload it fast enough for some unholy lump sum. Tenants have been offered paltry sums to surrender their apt.s. Eighty six units altogether. Today, some thirty something are now vacant. I'm starting to get the eerie feeling that I'm living on a ghost ship. There are moving trucks parked outside the building almost every month. Sometimes, consecutive weekends. There are some apt.s that house 3 generations of tenants. Some are among the first to ever have lived here. Many aren't. My family moved here when I startetd high school. My dad was the superintendant. He worked until he died here. My mom lives in the apartment directly above me. She is the only tenant now on her wing of her floor of the building. What's worse than having crazy, eccentric neighbors? No neighbors? It's fucked up.