High-rise

A hankering for a high-rise apartment with basement laundry, mail room and garbage chute. A cubbyhole in the sky, higher than my three above the street. Maybe eight floors up like Helene Hanff or a penthouse on the sixteenth like her friend Nina, with above, below, on the same floor convivial human and dog neighbours and cat suitors. A building with a front step to sit out on and pass the time; with a night doorman who offers car-and-driver services as a sideline. A hankering for New York City of the 60s, 70s, 80s. For block parties and parades and Thanksgiving Days. A dream city, for though it is still there I would not find it as written. It would have changed – as all cities do – and I'm not the type who likes getting lost. Nor do I like constant noise and bustle and bright lights. I would not make a good New Yorker; only in dream could I adopt the city as my home.

Picture credit: Apartment View, 1993, Wayne Thiebaud (source: WikiArt).

See Letter From New York by Helene Hanff. 

Written March 2023.