24 Years of living at 97 Arden Street. I miss it sometimes.

Snow was cause for celebration. The building superintendent was responsible for shoveling snow.

Delivery. Food, beer, wine, cigarettes. Pick up the phone, it’s there in 15 minutes or less.

Heat. Always abundant, even in the dead of winter. Often too much….those on ground level apartments always had their windows open, we, on the 4th floor (out of 6) often had them open. Watching snow fall in NYC while you’re cocooned in an overheated apartment and having a bottle of wine delivered is one of the great inventions/luxuries of civilization.

Parties. A lot of artists lived in my building. Painters, actors, opera singers, musical theatre people, and we were all friends. Events, like a heavy snowfall, or a power outage or a heat wave, called for a party. (See the delivery notation, above). One phone call and all and sundry descended into someone’s apartment for drinks and impromptu cheese platters accompanied by laughs and jokes and remarks about the weather, and mutterings of guilt-driven empathy for Richie,’The Super’ who was out there doing his job; shoveling 40 feet of snow.

I miss those days and those friends. Cheers to those of you still out there!