it's like this

yesterday when ralph came over, he remarked that in the vacant newly renovated apartment up the street, there's a microwave attached to stainless steel kitchen fixtures and such. like i said before, my landlord owns all the buildings on my side of the street. they've got on a construction rampage for the past two years or so, evicting long-time non-english speaking tenants and hooking up the empty apartments until they looked like something out of a pottery barn catalog.

yeah, i heard myself say, they're fixing them for all the downtown white people that are moving into the neighborhood -- because the black folk who live in the ghetto already can't afford them. and then my friend laughed and said, you know they have a laundromat in the basement. but you have to have a special key to use it -- and all the new tenants get one.

as ralph balked, my mind bounced back to little debbie's place in the ATL -- dunwoody, to be exact. when it was time for her to relocate to the south a few years ago because of work, she drove in from teaneck, new jersey with her two kids and rented her apartment sight unseen. it's a gated community that has 24 hour security, with a swimming pool, gym facilities, and whatnot. the apartment is spacious with a terrace and a washer/dryer and central air, and the kitchen is extra-special fancy, with brushed steel wonderment, a built-in microwave and all that jazz. her master bedroom has its own large well-appointed bathroom. all of this stuff isn't extra, by the way. it's standard issue. it comes with every apartment in her little community -- but i don't know of anyone in ATL who isn't living like this. it's the kind of stuff that almost everyone i know sort of takes for granted when they move into a new place.

and that's apartment living down there. that's rental. if you own your own house -- and if you're young, black, professional, female and in ATL, it's a good chance that you probably do -- you get that and way, way more. i grew up in a house in ATL that sits on 3 or 4 acres, with fruit trees in the backyard and a swimming pool and a sandbox. and woods to get lost in, woods that are filled with critters and berries and spiders and adventure.

i just read this article that said the $60K you make annually in new york city is worth $26K in the ATL. anyone that's been here for more than a week knows that you can't live on $60K. not if you don't want to live hand to mouth, with roommates no less, with zip amenities in a crummy neighborhood. no. if you want to live well in this town, you'll need to make at least 100K a year -- and if/when you do, you won't come anywhere near what little debbie and her kids have. not by a long shot.

no wonder new york yankees go down south, see how beautiful everything is and lose their damn minds. people who are from up here can't seem to fathom how good everyone has it elsewhere. and those of us who are not from up here have constant amnesia about what a decent quality of life is really supposed to be.

i can't forget because i have family down south who constantly remind me that in spite of the fact that i have a nice two bedroom apartment in west harlem and my name is on the lease, it's a stinkhole and something of a joke, compared to what i could have in the ATL for the same price. sometimes i wonder how much of a millionaire i'm going to have to be to have a middle class existence in the city, or if its something i'll even want if i ever get that far.

my new york city doesn't exist anymore. it's not just gentrification, per se. and yes, sex and the city ruined this city. but it's bigger than that. the city is in transition. it's dying. what we are hearing and seeing, from dire predictions about the economy and auctioning condos to the newly minted rentals up the block, is one long slow death rattle. soon enough, new york city will be very much like paris, france -- a place where only the very rich could possibly afford to live. people who service the city will come in from the outer boroughs. and after rush hour, the heart of the city will emptier than downtown houston at twilight.

the knock on the door

i got a knock on my door the other day. when it happened, it seemed to echo throughout the entire apartment, like something ominous was about to happen. like something out of a hitchcock movie. my friend and i looked each other dead in the eye like he was steve mcqueen and i was ali macgraw and we were on the lam. ah, peckinpah. i actually felt a few seconds of genuine panic.

i know that it's weird, i know that "people don't do that," but i don't care. those "people" don't have to walk a mile in my converse all-stars. and if they did, they'd never make it across the street. i never answer the door. and i know very few black people who do. answering the door is the kind of thing that happens in the suburbs or on television. they answer the door on your favorite sit-com. in reality, it's not the thing to do in the ghetto. it's just not. there's absolutely no such thing as an unexpected visitor in this neck of the woods. when someone wants to come over, they call first to make sure you're home. or you plan it out. you say stuff like, yeah i'll be home around 7pm. swing by, we'll have ice cream. but they don't just knock out of nowhere. only cops do that. and even then, i'm not opening the door. that's a great way to rob someone at gunpoint. you can buy a cop uniform anywhere.

a few years ago, my next door neighbors got robbed by two guys pretending to be cops. they flashed badges and everything. and they had small children in that apartment! heh. not me, buddy. i ain't goin' for that okey-doke. you're going to have to shoot me through the peephole. and you'd better not miss.

i even know actors who keep cop outfits on hand, in case there's last minute on camera extra work or under fives to be had.

and hey -- remember that deranged guy that pretended to be a fireman who knocked on his former co-worker's door on halloween? he raped her, beat her up -- for 13 hours. he even videotaped everything. why did it take months to find him?

so like i said the first time: if i don't know that you're coming over, i'm not answering the door.

so yeah, it's funny now but for some reason it wasn't funny in the moment: there we were, watching the daily show and we're both looking at each other as we silently ask the same question and run through our mental database of who it could be. all of that in a glance.

so he gets the door. it's this guy, a 19 year old kid really, from the 2nd floor. he's dark skinned, with these contacts that make his eyes look hazel, almost vampiric. he's dominican, like almost everyone else in the building. and he's flaming. i like this kid. he's got two little brothers and they're adorable. i always make sure to give them kindereggs at holloween. and a baby sister. and his mother is kind of a saint. so he's got my full and undivided attention. i want to help him for his mother's sake. she's that much of a sweetie.

he wants to talk to me about modeling. modeling!? get this: someone stopped him in the street, said they were an agent from elite and after an initial meeting, decided to work with him doing runway -- for 40% of his take. i balked. first of all, while i'm sure that happens to lots of people in the industry -- every other model, from gisele to alek wek started exactly this way -- it sounds like a total con. just because it happened to them doesn't mean they aren't going to pull your leg or try to use you up. he's telling me about what a fierce walk he's got. who cares if you're getting used up? the average modeling career only lasts until you're 21.

i didn't tell any of that to the kid. instead, i told him the numbers that never get an argument out of anyone: my manager has never taken more than 10% and neither has any agent i've ever worked with. and i can write that 10% off at tax time. i'm doing on camera and voiceover work now, but even when i did print work in college, no body took that much. i know visual artists who have to fork over 50% to the galleries that represent them. elvis gave up 50% to colonel tom parker, his manager. but that was their deal. that wasn't the norm. i don't know any runway models who give up 40%. and runway is an important distinction to make because that's where black models get paid as much as white ones.

as i'm talking to him, i look over at my friend who's standing in the kitchen and he makes a face. then i look at the kid and realize that he's making the same face, too. of course, this made me laugh. but then the kid thought i was laughing at him, and that made me feel bad. so instead of explaining why i laughed, i apologized, brought him inside and gave him my card. i know quite a few fashion designers and stylists and the like. if he wants some advice, i know of a few people that he can call.

the last thing i said to him was, you can knock on my door whenever you want. and you know what? i actually meant it.

the old lady at the door

in the apartment down the hall that faces the street there lives an old lady and her small dog. a young woman lives with her, too. twentysomething. past college, easily. young and working and playing in the city. i've seen her chatting with paul and chad. paul is the one that introduced us. and yes, her name escapes me.

i'm not sure if she is the old lady's niece or her granddaughter or what but they seem close. the old lady is puerto rican or probably dominican. she speaks no english. in the few times that i've seen her in the hallway, she's usually carrying on a running conversation with her dog. the young woman looks white but she speaks spanish. they have the same heavy-lidded brown eyes, the same wiry determined frame. the same kind of pretty.

sometimes during the day when everything has levelled off sonically and there is a lull in the construction, i can hear the old lady at the door. at first i thought it was my bad 8th grade spanish playing tricks on me. but no. it was definitely her, and she was completely distraught. later, i asked paul and chad about it -- because they lived right next door to them, they must have seen and heard much more than i ever could. paul (who's nosy enough to know) said that the old lady is going senile. when the young woman leaves for work, she locks the door with a special lock from the outside in, so the old lady can't unlock it and wander off. evidently, she fell into the habit of doing just that and was found some blocks away in her gown and robe and slippers, her hair in pincurls, confused and scared, her little dog at her feet, faithfully following her lead.

the young woman comes home on her lunch hour to make sure that she's alright. but when she leaves, she locks her in again, and i can sometimes hear her messing around with the doorknob and the locks as her little dog scratches at the door and she begs for help in spanish.

today was especially bad, probably because it was almost 100 degrees outside. i'm sure she's okay, i reasoned to myself as i went into my apartment. i'm sure she has plenty of water. i'm sure the a/c is on. i'm sure that she's eaten breakfast. i'm sure that white-looking dominican girl will be here soon. i'm sure there's food and water in there for the dog. i'm sure, i told myself again and again. but the truth is, i wasn't sure. and neither was anyone else.

i went into my apartment with my mail and my groceries and my piano lesson and my problems. but i couldn't stop thinking about her, no matter how hard i practiced. so i went back out there, into that hot, sun-drenched hallway, to face the source of all of that whimpering.

as i approached the door with what little spanish i knew, i could hear the dog scratching, and when i spoke he began to bark. but she quieted it down with one sharp word. i heard myself talking through the doorjam and asking her: es mucho calor, no? que haces? tienes hambre? que quieres? somehow, we began to talk.

(evidently, that spanish i took in middle school still works. don't let them fool you, not for a minute -- nothing learned is ever wasted.)

of course i thought of my grandmother in charleston, sc and how comfortable her life is right now and what i would do if it were her and me against the world. it would break my heart to have to lock her up in an apartment in an urban setting like this one, but i'd do it in a heartbeat if that's what it took to keep a job and pay the rent.

the old lady was fine, sort of. she didn't like feeling trapped and i think that more than anything else, she wanted her husband. he died in the apartment a few years ago. either she thinks he's lost outside somewhere or she's waiting for him to come back from the store, or both. or something else. hey, my spanish isn't that good. but it was a nice chat.

she may be senile, but she isn't blind. apparently, she knows what i look like. she kept calling me morena.

gentrify, testify

there's been a massive amount of construction in my building. a commercial development company bought all of the buildings on my side of the street, and although the rumor is that they'll flip the buildings and turn them into condos when the vacancy limit is reached, others say that it's more of a moneymaker to continue renovating each apartment as it becomes vacant and jacking up the rent to match whatever they're paying downtown. they've even put up green awnings at each entrance with the address and this really silly, pretentious name: the westbourne.

what's especially sad is that when they renovate, every other room becomes a bedroom, for the most part, and harlem apartments were never meant to be lived in that way -- especially on the west side. the people who move into these spaces never realize that. most places have a living room, dining room and a kitchen that's large enough to sit and eat in. and the larger apartments in the front also have sun rooms or sitting rooms. even my two bedroom apartment is supposed to be a one bedroom set-up: they converted the dining room into a large bedroom and put a closet in it, then sealed off a doorway that led directly to the kitchen.

the reason why they don't have anything like that downtown is because back in the day, harlem was meant for luxurious living. the sidewalks are broader, there are malls filled with flora and fauna that divide the streets with benches to sit and chat, and the streets feel more like thoroughfares than roads. and compared to what you'd find downtown, the apartments are cavernous.

the apartments downtown were created for immigrants: small cramped situations with bathtubs in the living room and bathrooms down the hall when they weren't placed in a closet. that's the nyc in the tenement museum in the lower east side. no one gets to wander through a harlem apartment unless they're watching one of those screwball comedies from the 20s or 30s -- and when you happen upon one of those movies, with the sumptuous marble lobbies, replete with chandeliers and whatnot, you have to keep reminding yourself that its new york city that you're seeing.

watching the disparity in these movies as a kid, i always knew that i would live in a palace of an apartment in harlem. why bother with any other part of the city? and although i've had pretty standard issue places so far -- with the exception of a cavernous place on riverside drive -- they have been huge in comparison to the apartments downtown and elsewhere in the city. i still want such a place. what's bizarre is that if i stay in this building long enough and if they actually flip the building, i just might get it.

my new york city

When I was little, I would daydream about living in New York City. I knew that I would live in Harlem and that I would live alone. I also knew that I would have an unconventional creative life. I didn’t know what I would do to make money exactly, but I imagined that I would wear gowns for a living. I didn’t know if I would ever get married and have children but I knew that I would have lifelong friends, and that we would have grand adventures. I would eat things like lobster thermidor and collect bakelite jewelry – and although my mother and father would be around, no one would ever tell me when to go to bed. While other girls were thinking about what their wedding day would be like, I was standing on a box in the bathroom, pretending to accept some award, wondering what I’d say, what I’d wear.

Somehow, every famous anybody that had a modicum of talent had a story to tell about what happened to them when they lived there and what they did and how they pulled it off and when they left or why they stayed. Because back in the day (and I think this still holds true), if you wanted to be an actor, you went to New York City and did theater and then you went to California.

The question remains: What is "my New York City story"? Maybe what I should ask is: Where is "my New York City" in the first place?

This place is not the Emerald City that I dreamed of. That was a fantasy. It’s not the toilet filled with human excrement that overwhelmed me in the early 90s when I got here, either. That was reality then. The city is basically becoming a Jersey strip mall, filled with long-term tourists and short-term students. Something in me wants to get it overwith, go to graduate school and leave when I’m done. But I live in a wonderful section of Harlem, one that most people have never heard of. (Thank God.) My neighborhood doesn’t seem to be going down as quickly as the rest of the city. Things are getting pricey up here, though. Everyone is already running for the Bronx.

I want to leave but where would I go? How do you leave New York City? Once you’ve spent a certain amount of time here, I’m not sure that it’s entirely possible. I like Harlem, though. It's easy to understand why it was (and to some, it still is) the cultural capital of Black America.

Everything here is easier to stomach when you have a cool place to live. The reason why living alone in a Harlem apartment is such a luxury is because most of them have everything that a proper home should, besides a room to sleep in: a living room, a dining room, a foyer. A kitchen to sit and eat in. Closet space. Space, period. No small wonder – it was created for people with money and class. You can see the opulent remnants everywhere. The way most of the buildings have elevators and marble lobbies and chandeliers. The beautiful parks. The wide walkways that let you stroll. The lower east side, on the other hand, was built for the steady stream of immigrants who lived like lemmings in walk-ups with everything in one room.

Someone had the genius idea to turn my place into a two bedroom set-up, so I’m basically sleeping in what was the dining room. I’m rearranging everything, cleaning everything, throwing things away. It's spring cleaning in December. It's also a New Year's Eve tradition but why wait until the last minute? Time to make those end-of-the-year tax write-off donations to charitable organizations like The Salvation Army and Furnish-A-Future.

My little bachelorette pad, filled with Super 8 equipment and art books and framed lobby cards and mah jong bakelite jewelry, is somewhere underneath it all.