One of my favorite New York City summer pastimes involves lurking the streets late in the evening, taking advantage of the fleeting benefits of a bathwater climate. Hot air from the day still lingers long into the night like concrete does after an afternoon of sunning. These nights are the reward for withstanding a hellacious day. On these evenings I throw all caution to the wind, departing from my tiresome habit of watching the repetitious flurry of my sandaled feet hitting pavement in a paranoid avoidance of such urban hazards as dog poop and ankle-spraining sidewalk cracks. Instead, I opt to stare up into the slowly passing windows, the lights from the inside betraying the privacy of its occupants and allowing me a look-see into house and hovel.
Most often, people trying to sneak a peak into another person’s home might be looking for say, boobs. I, on the other hand, am assessing square footage, quality of the overhead lighting, and any visible artwork. My intentions stem from a wholesome desire to see how other people decorate or, if they don’t decorate, what kind of ill-lit dungeon they are content living in. I would imagine that this Homes & Gardens variety of Peeping Tom-ism was developed and enabled by my mother while touring the neighborhood together in our Toyota Landcruiser in preparation for the remodel of our house back in 1994.
Being a control freak – something I also inherited – my mom was adamant on her involvement in the design process. In fact, she pretty much designed the whole house. For research, she took pictures of the things she liked, had the photos developed, and then cut and pasted the pilfered elements together until it resembled something close to what she envisioned in her head. I’m pretty sure there is an iPhone app for this type of thing now, but in 1994 we were still weaning ourselves off of the MS-DOS of my youth. The resulting home was a product of both the neighborhood and my mother’s own imagination.
One might say I caught the decorating bug.
Introduced early on to the oddly intoxicating smell of freshly laid carpet and the fine sawdust from cut 2 x 4s, my childhood fascination with home design and décor has followed me well into adulthood. Manifestations of this “disease” usually come in the form of touring open houses despite the fact that I am not in the market for one and needlessly picking up copies of Dwell Magazine. And lastly, house stalking.
In my years of snooping research, I have learned a few things. Ordinarily, the scope of a home’s opulence can be at least loosely estimated by simply observing its exterior. Size, landscaping, and general maintenance offer clues as to what the inside perhaps looks like. New York, on the other hand, with its endless bricked and fire-escaped facades can be quite misleading, especially during the daytime. Thus, I am forced to travel by cloak of darkness if I am expected to get any good spying done.
My neighborhood is not the most optimal of places to observe. I live on the cusp of Chinatown in an area that is slowly gentrifying with the passing of each old codger, giving up his rent-controlled abodes only in death. At this point, the landlord can come in, remodel the hell out of the joint, and then charge “fair market value” – generally a monthly price that would make your hair stand on end. The result is a neighborhood that is a combination of up-and-coming young people bleeding money just to live centrally and impoverished geriatrics holding on to the vestiges of long forgotten law. In other words, it’s an aesthetic clusterfuck.
When I glimpse into the windows of a building near my apartment I am predictably horrified. Fake white orchid petals and the dusty leaves of plastic ivy clutter the inner surface of windowsills. Circular fluorescent tubes missing their cheap plastic covers reflect pallid light against the foul-textured ceiling covered in its 103rd coat of lead paint. These are the homes of people not paying what I am paying.
As I head into SoHo, the visual impoverishment of my neck of the woods fades away. Money has a magical way of making things look nice, that’s for sure. For those of you who have never been to Manhattan, SoHo is a small area that evolved from utilitarian storage facilities into a once reasonable abode for artists and their studios. That time has come and gone: SoHo now exists in a clean and renovated state perfectly suited for the gargantuan homes of rich people and designer stores. It is a place that I feel simultaneously alienated from and completely at home.
On Greene Street is a most beautiful building. Its sanded brick surface conveys an understated softness. Along the surface of the faded pink brick is a faded green fire escape, crawling up the side of the building like iron bougainvillea. I expect my immediate love of the place is because it is the same color scheme as my childhood home. Snickerdoodle and sea foam.
The view into the second floor is obstructed by a series of expensive matching white curtains. Each of the four windows is appointed with its own windowsill flower box, shades of yellow and green miniature shrubbery thriving in some boxes and suffering in others.
Indications of egregious New York City wealth can be easily determined once you know what to look for. For instance, the aforementioned series of four windows, each decorated with the same set of curtains, tells the viewer that this person most likely occupies the entire floor of that building. This is no small feat. My bedroom has one large window facing the street. The floor of my building is shared with four other tenants, each crammed into their individual apartment cubicles.
What I wouldn’t do for four street-facing windows…
I walk the cobblestone streets of SoHo, hot air sticking to my cheeks and my black handbag swaying rhythmically at my side. I contemplate if my own wealth will ever be measured by the number of windows in my apartment as demonstrated by my tastefully chosen window treatments. One thing is for certain: you’ll never catch me with a window full of fake orchids basking under fluorescents.
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Your writing is so refreshing! I love every time you put out a story. I find myself smiling into the screen and often times laughing out loud because you seemed the capture the clusterfuck that is the female spirit.
Can’t wait to see what you write next Jenny!