THEN THERE WAS THE TIME #4

Art studio/apartment / Photo by R.C. Smith

Then there was the time I lived in the same apartment building in Hell’s Kitchen, built in 1910, for 8 years – from the late 70s until the mid-80s. A quarter of the building’s tenants were artists and writers. Several of us were either working at, or attending classes at The Art Students League. One of them was my upstairs neighbor, Jorge, born somewhere in South America. Which was as specific as he ever got about his origins. Jorge’s apartment was an art studio and a haven for pigeons. The pigeons were named Magenta and Roberto, and they lived in his walls and freely flew in and out the screenless windows. He sculpted, painted, and fed seeds to his pigeons. Regardless of the season, Jorge wandered around his place in a makeshift loincloth, often accompanied by a headscarf. The scent of stone dust and incense clung to everything in his apartment, as he chipped away at his sculptures long into the night. When not creating art, posing for a life drawing class at The League, or talking to Magenta and Roberto, Jorge’s role in life seemed to be being a free spirt for people on the sidewalks of New York City to encounter. Sometimes he invited me into his apartment to see a sculpture or painting in progress. He always looked at me in a bemused way, since I was in a long period of adjusting to living in the city after taking a train up the Eastern Seaboard from a small town on Florida’s Gulf Coast. As if by predestination or serendipity, I’d found my way to the apartment building on a street sloping down toward the Hudson River, from a note on a bulletin board at The League. It said “Looking for someone to sublet apartment for three months.” Sounded good. Talking to him in person, I found out he would soon be heading to Washington State, where he’d rented a cabin in the Cascades, and was going to paint mountains, trees, rivers, and clouds. We had a good meeting about me subletting. He was all set to make the deal, when I said, “I do like your apartment, but I’m  looking for something permanent.” He turned his head sideways, seemed to consider his next words, then said, “I wouldn’t tell this to just anyone, but you seem alright. The apartment below is vacant.” Twenty minutes later, after talking with the on-site building manager, she set up a time for me to sign the lease the following day.  Rent was $125.00 a month for a one-bedroom apartment. A railroad flat type apartment, with a bathtub in the kitchen. The other sculptor I met lived in the building next door, and we were connected by our courtyard’s iron fire escape. Lisa took classes at The League as well. We’d sit on the fire escape connecting our two buildings, and talk, over beers while watching late afternoon shadows cast by the ailanthus tree. She made a series of small clay pieces, as sketches of larger works. Lisa kept these under damp cloths in her bathtub, and went across the hall to her boyfriend’s to take a bath. One time her older sister came from Michigan for a visit, and she liked taking her morning baths. At this point, I woke up 6:00 a.m., made tea and toast, and walked the eight or so blocks to the Art Students League. Lisa’s sister asked me if there was any way she could use my bathtub while I was at work. I said, “Sure. I’ll leave the window open a crack, and you can come into my apartment. I’ll leave a clean towel.” For the week she was there, she wrote a thank you note for every bath taken, and taped them all around my apartment. Which is a pretty good thing to come home to.