November 17, 2003: Loft work
The first time I was in a New York City loft, I must have been about ten. Anthony's parents had a whole circle of radical Marxist artist friends living in crumbling buildings downtown. One night, we went over to visit some of them for dinner- we drove into the city and parked on Canal Street- I'm pretty sure the loft was somewhere over by Bowery. It was one of those classic east side loft buildings- a long stairway that just keeps going back, and back, and back, and a huge open plan apartment where all the walls seemed temporary. Anyway, to a ten year old it seemed like a super cool way to live, and I decided that when I was older, that's the kind of apartment I'd get. I was reminded of it today when I went over to visit another loft- this time, Jay's- a friend who lives down in Tribeca. We had to seal up his roof vents for the winter- challenging work, crouching on a pitched roof 6 stories above Church Street.
Comments
Is it true that you enjoy some fixin's from Popeye's Fried Chicken to fortify you pre-roof vent sealing?
hell yeah- i got the chicken strips combo meal- $6.50, including biscuit and corn on the cob. The best part is that when you order, it figures out how much change you are owed, and then the machine offers you something else. So it's like, you can have your $.50 change, or we'll give you another biscuit! a great way for them to squeeze out the last cent from the customer, and also a good way to keep the inventory moving.
While I was at NYU, I lived in a loft on Chambers Street with three friends (and a revolving cast of crashers and long-term guests). We hired a sculptor with carpentry skills to build us sheetrock walls and we put up acoustic tile ceilings on each of our little cubicle rooms. At the time, it was a great place--we could fit like 200 for parties, we had high ceilings in the common areas, and storage galore. But looking back on the lack of privacy, the drafty windows, and the industrial heating unit on the ceiling that fairly belched hot air, I'm glad I'm back in a bourgie apartment with, like, rooms and closets, and stuff. Lofts look so cool in movies (especially when they have freight elevators that lift you directly into your pad, man), but actually living in them sucks unless you're a millionaire and can hire an architect to retro-fit it into being livable.
PS. We had an incredible view of the Twin Towers. Sigh.
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