Demographics Part I

In Autumn, 2006, I lost my job. Almost a year in to the construction industry and I was now forced to reevaluate how to devote my time and apply my Bachelor’s. The apartment had become all I had ever dreamt and more. Lounge lighting, paintings, and mirrors adorned the abode, but the view was the real feature of the apartment worth speaking of. During daytime a shimmer of light refracted from the skin of an Acela Train could catch your eye and at night, the twinkling lights of Manhattan, Queens and Long Island would fuse with the distant stars, creating an the illusion that the horizon was indiscernible. All of my apartment’s trend and beauty, mastery and mystery would be a ruse—an unacceptable illusion in this case—if I did not have a career to back it up. It would be like putting a silk hat on a pig and in many ways, this pristine gem atop 1990 Lexington Avenue, already fit that expression.

Shortly after moving in, I noticed an increased presence of newcomers. First, there were my neighbors who resided diagonally across the hall from me. Two bubbly girls from Syracuse, NY who had also decided to take the city by storm. Their storm however was not the dreams of paper money in torrential downpours, but of humor, positivity and rambunctious energy, mollified by their happy-go-lucky attitudes. We were perfect compliments from our very first meeting.
The fact was, like it or not, new residents were easy to spot due to their skin color. By my approximation, the 1,000+ tenants of 1990 Lexington were 85% black and 15% Puerto Rican. I was not sure where the four of us living up on 33 fit in to that ratio—in statistical actuality (using whole numbers) we did not.

The first incident of overt racism occurred no more than two weeks after my lease began. While the heat wave had broken, a new climatic anomaly was beginning. Several weeks before losing my project management job in construction (late August, 2006), I piled into the overcrowded elevator after a 12-hour workday. By the 20th floor, it was only me, two other women and a small girl (probably 11 years old). One woman turned and looked at me, baking away in my wool pants and heavy cotton shirt, swiveled her gaze over the adolescent to her friend and said, “A lot of new faces here, a lot of new faces…” The woman she addressed remained silent while the girl laughed. Having gone through 24 years of an admittedly wild, risky lifestyle, I had never once encountered this type of situation before. I too remained quiet. Could be worse, I thought…

Several weeks after the first elevator incident, I had already met and introduced myself to almost a dozen neighbors. Most of who purported to have resided in 1990 for many years and by their looks and age, they certainly seemed to have weathered their own storms, yet most were cordial. Early in September, the increasing number of longtime tenants being displaced became much more real to me. I trailed a group of middle-aged women through the main door and into the lobby. Another group of women was exiting the elevator, unloading lamps, chairs and various other personal effects. Along with the group of women I had followed from the street, we took occupancy of the still waiting elevator. A round woman with a push-cart launched into a heated tirade with her friends. It sounded something like, “She’s leavin’ now?! I ain’t movin’ out! They may want me to move outta here, but I ain’t leavin’! Been here too damn long for this shit!” Had it not been for the upwardly accelerating elevator car, her rising blood pressure might have sent her packing right then and there. Her friends nodded, Mmmhmm’d, but also looked concerned for the rotund woman’s health. Once again, I found myself playing the dumbfounded mute.

Heat Break

The first night was accompanied by unrelenting, immobilizing heat. Having to drink 2 40s of Coors Light to get to sleep in my brand new bed, I numbed the experience of adapting to the sounds, smells and sights of this hulk of a building. After work, the following day, I made sure to buy an air conditioner. Supplies were limited, and many of the retailers were price-gouging, but I managed to purchase a hefty unit which would fit in the deep sleeve under the window of my bedroom. I then raced from union square to 125th Street on the express, to the oven of my true first apartment.
The delivery between 8 and 10pm became more of a fantasy by 10:45 and I opened another Coors on the terrace. I listened to Hot 97 on my roommate’s portable stereo, sipped my 40—covered with sweat and beer, I made my first attempt to blend. In fact, it was more like basking in my recent accomplishment of the job and the apartment in Manhattan. To any sane outsider, I was more basting than basking, however. The temperature inside the apartment was over 100-degrees, it was nearing midnight and the air conditioner was presumably somewhere between 14th and 122nd street. Several futile phone calls to the retailer on 14th yielded no more than the store hours. As it looked like I was going to spend my second night of true freedom saturated in sweat and beer, an unmarked white box truck slinked into an open parking spot across Lexington avenue; seconds later my phone rang.

After generously tipping and gratuitously thanking the deliverymen, I affixed the air conditioner into the sleeve using nothing more than a swiss army knife. Cutting through the rubbery adhesive surrounding the spacers was trying to slice through a Pirelli with a penknife, but youthful exuberance and light beer prevailed. Soon, the modern LG, tapped into the decades-old circuitry of 1990 Lexington Avenue, was pulling amps and pushing cool air. With gaps on either side of the machine wide enough to fit a family of mice and their pet cockroaches through, the heavy, stagnant city air could commute to-fro my bedroom and my terrace. The air conditioner had a twofold affect: curing the air to ease my body and drowning out the incessant sirens to ease my mind.

That Friday the heat finally broke.

Moving In...

I moved in to 1990 Lexington Ave. on August 1st, 2006. The heat wave was several days from breaking, but over 2 dozen people in the city had already died from the intolerable climate. Having moved away from my parent’s only months prior, I had very few possessions and had just purchased a bed which was slated to be delivered to my new apartment that very day.
I floated down Lexington ave. from the 125th street stop, donning my best shirt and tie. As I approached the entrance to the tower, I noticed an unmarked box truck across the street, parked in front of one of the three bodegas on the block. I shouted across to one of the workers from the truck as he hoisted the trucks rear-door and confirmed that they were in fact there to deliver a mattress. As my mattress slid off the back of the truck I heard a female voice call my name from behind. Spinning on my axis I found myself face-to-face with a former college classmate, whom I had not seen in about a year-and-a-half. More surprised than I was to see her, she inquired as to whether or not I was moving in and I emphatically told her yes, and pointed out my mattress being trudged across Lexington avenue through rush hour traffic. It turned out that she had been shown my apartment (being on the top floor and having a great view, it was the model apartment that the broker chose to bait the clientele with). While she was mildly jealous that my roommate and I had leased the place in front of her, she was happy to see a familiar face in a land of strangers. She wound up living 2 floors below me, on 31 (the thirty-first floor).

Following my mattress being carted through the bland lobby of 1990, I was met with a series of inquisitive, yet unabashed stares. In the elevator, which surprisingly could hold a full-size mattress and about nine other passengers, an elderly woman asked if I was moving in. When I acknowledged she said, “Well, welcome.” I thanked her profusely, and was happy when I was the last person off the elevator on the 33rd floor.