I’ve been struggling with how to illustrate the anatomical structure (and no, I don’t mean architectural) of my grandfather’s apartment building because it’s unique in ways that aren’t easily described in words but intensely important and critical for the purpose of depicting the stage and scenery of my childhood dilemma. I wouldn’t say it was a beautiful building nor ugly but more extremely old and perspiring with character. This apartment building was (and still is) a three-story walk up built circa 1900 but most definitely before the first world war, consisting of five apartments and one storefront. Two apartments each were on the second and third floors with the first floor consisting of one apartment and the storefront, which normally served, till this day, as a grocery store. The store was forever my favorite and only fond memory of the building. It had candy, after all. The building was entirely made from yellow bricks brought over from Germany so even though it wasn’t an architectural masterpiece it certainly was handsome enough to catch your eye with its intricate details and nearly perfect stonework. The bricks were fitted so tightly in place that one could hardly discern any, if at all, cement. The top of the building had fancy capstones which took on the appearance of gargoyles at night and sometimes even at dawn. The windows in each apartment were ample, from floor to ceiling and drafty as all hell, especially because the apartment was built before insulation was available. The tin ceilings were beyond high in spite of my not so tall stature; hence, we always had an enormous Christmas tree every year. The walls were thick dense plaster that could probably defend against most of today’s or yesterday’s weaponry. Parquet flooring was the norm in buildings of this era and wainscoting was in nearly every room. The stairway was constructed of beautiful dark hard wood and the stair railing was substantially reinforced and wooden, as well. Even though the building was completely renovated when electricity became available there were still all the gaslight fixtures on the walls everywhere remembering themselves of a long ago time; I think the building’s ghosts still utilize them today. I was most curious about these fixtures and recall watching the movie, “Gaslight” with my family and finding myself from that point on always watching for any hint of spooky gaslight activity emanating from them. The bathrooms in all the apartments were also ancient. The bathtubs all had legs and feet and I was often creeped out when bathing because I imagined something hiding underneath the bathtub lingering and wishing me harm. The tub was retrofitted with a showerhead but if I closed the shower curtain around myself while showering it felt like I was mummified, seriously. There weren’t any electrical light fixtures anywhere so if it weren’t for strategically placed lamps you’d be dealing with perpetual darkness. Remembering, I’d turn on every lamp in the apartment just to ward off those darkness loving spirits who were endlessly hovering about the joint just waiting to pounce on me. The most difficult aspect and area of the building to describe would be the cellar, indoor alleyway and miniature “backyard”. The cellar was huge! It made up the entire building’s footprint and definitely speaks to the history loving people of the world. It was easy to see where horses were kept and cared for down there in the crypt of the building’s cellar and it always smelled of horse spirits even though there be not a horse about for decades and decades. Outside the building there was a ramp walkway that led the horses down to their stalls in the cellar but over time this ramp was made into steps, once the automobile rendered horse and carriage transportation obsolete. By the time my family and I occupied this building the majority of the cellar was made into separate individual wooden rooms with padlocks for the building’s different occupant’s belongings. I had a rabbit hutch down there for one of my rabbits at one point but this didn’t prove constructive because I was always too afraid to spend time with my rabbit in the scary cellar and found it agonizing to care for and visit my pet bunny. When this became apparent to my parents, we moved the hutch (small wire cage hutch) upstairs to my bedroom. Not too long following the rabbit relocation, I developed an allergy to rabbits or I had always had this allergy but we didn’t realize until our close proximity to each other made it obvious. My parents tried to move the rabbit back to the cellar but I insisted this would not be constructive for my emotional wellbeing so my parents allowed my rabbit roommate to stay while I toughed it out sneezing and coughing for years until the rabbit died of natural causes…I hope. By the way, I’m also allergic to Hasenpfeffer! The cellar had an indoor alleyway that led to the small outdoor backyard area and this alleyway was completely without electricity and it was completely dark, damp and frightening. The alleyway was very long and narrow. I’d say it was about four feet wide and at least one hundred feet long and if I wanted to fill the small kiddie pool in the small backyard with water I’d have to snake the hose (three fifty foot hoses connected together) from the cellar water faucet all the way through this long dark alleyway and all the way to the backyard. I lived in this building for years but only remember using that kiddie pool three times at most because the anxiety of entering the long dark causeway to hell wasn’t worth the effort nor my peace of mind. The nail in the alleyway’s coffin as a pathway of use for me was when I stumbled, actually stumbled, over an old wooden crate with a dead cat on top. This poor cat must have been trapped for days or longer before dying an agonal and lonely death. It must have been there a good decade or more because all that was left of it was black fur and flattened dried out bones. I imagine till this day how that cat must have finally given up trying to escape this horrific and gruesomely sealed tomb and simply fell asleep on top of that wooden crate never to wake again; I’m incredibly still so sad for that cat.
All of the five apartments had one and only one humongous “closet”; I think it was actually considered a small storage room. Closets weren’t built into buildings in those days. People didn’t have the need nor the abundance of clothes as we do today. Wardrobes and dressers were in vogue back then so apartment buildings rarely had any of the built into the structure storage areas (closets) of modern times. However, this apartment building had enormous monolithically cavernous walkin closets that must have acted as pantries or something of the like. The closet in my family’s apartment was in my room; this didn’t bode well for me. To be continued…
theaflys 