gramercy park memories

A friend is visiting New York now and was kind enough to take a photo of this building in which I lived several years ago. At the time, I had no appreciation for the significance of the columns in front of it and how they help tell the story of tensions between the Old World and "New World." This building is located in Gramercy Park, one of the posher communities in Manhattan. Before this nineteenth century building was renovated and turned into a fancy condo, it was a women's residence. It was filled with students, artists and aging women. You had to be 35 years old or younger to get in and you could stay forever. Indeed, some of the tenants had been there for decades. There was always a waiting list. Talk about Old World, male guests were only permitted to meet you in the parlor or in the dining room where we had three meals a day on white polyesther tablecloths (plastic flowers were in dime store vases on every table). I was in my early 30s at the time. All I wanted was a safe place to live at a cheap price. So my tiny room sufficed while I lived out my dream of being a New Yorker before heading to graduate school. It's been eleven years since I left New York. I will always cherish the memories of how my worldview seemed to expand there, especially after the twin towers fell. My Moorhead, Mississippi-born mom often told me: "remember if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere" when I refused to immediately leave on the heels of that day. Who knew, however, that around the corner was a high school where I would briefly teach before discovering Deborah Gray White's now classic study on African American women in the plantation south. I was hooked and wanted to learn more. And after years of study, here I am in Alabama. PS The best thing about this building was that we had eleven keys to the park across the street. It is the last private park in Manhattan and thus has received a lot of attention for such exclusion. Only residents living on one of the four sides of the park and their guests are permitted to enter. It now makes me think of how the students enrolled in this course can expand their attention to "divided space" as relayed by Gunther Barth, one of the authors of the books we will be reading this fall. PSS Julia Roberts is one of the celebs who is an area resident. I never met her though. I did accidentally receive the mail for another celeb whose name shall remain unspoken. Her doorman was surprised to see me returning it. She didn't even live near the park, which is beyond curious. But that's Manhattan for you. You take the good with everything else.