| Sunday, February 13, 2005 |
| The Secret Lives of Houses |
I love my neighborhood. I have enjoyed living in this eclectic, elegant, bohemian, community more than anywhere else except my parent’s home. Considering that includes some 20 different addresses in 8 cities since I first left home – I think that’s pretty definitive. I can’t imagine living anywhere else (well, maybe I can, but that villa in the South of France is a bit of a fantasy, although a pied-a-terre in NYC, London, or Paris might be nice).
Last night was a lazy, mid-winter Saturday night, and Andrew and I decided to hang out, order some pizza, drink some wine and watch a movie. Since his couch is probably the most comfortable piece of furniture I’ve ever lost consciousness on, the location was to be his brownstone a few blocks from me – I told him I would walk over at around 7:30 pm.
Walking through my neighborhood at night is simply wonderful. I sometimes go out of my way to catch another block just to see the houses. Tall, elegant, stately Victorian row homes, most of them built in the mid to late 1800’s. If you didn’t know better, you’d think you were walking along a quiet tree lined street in Beacon Hill in Boston, or in Kensington, London. You half expect to look in a window and see Mary Poppins tucking children into bed. More likely, you see what I saw last night.
Tall, ornate windows with wrought iron window boxes on them, framing interiors so varied and so eclectic, it’s hard to believe they are all in the same zip code. There are twelve and thirteen foot ceilings with ornate plaster cornices and moldings, crystal and glass chandeliers in most of them, high tech track lighting and halogen spots in others. Grand pianos and huge Chinese vases are visible in some windows, and overstuffed Victorian and Louis XIV sofas and settees in others. Most have massive marble fireplaces with mantels and huge mirrors or artwork above them. Some of the houses have been restored to their original splendor; some have been stripped to a bare, modern, minimalist, austereness worthy of Bauhaus with their large, modern art pieces to match; and others are comfortably chabby chic, with kid’s finger paintings on the fridge, mismatched pieces of furniture, and toys scattered on the hardwood floors.
Some of the homes have been carved into apartment buildings. Mostly, they house the students from the local Art Institute, and mostly, these apartments are dark at 7:30 on a Saturday evening, their inhabitants already out at Happy Hour or some other social function. There was a lively group of students assembled in front of the dorm getting ready to head out for an evening’s festivities, but even the dormitory is elegant in this neighborhood. It used to be an old, turn of the century hospital; the “Lying in” Hospital for Women and Children, a Victorian era women’s hospital. After that, it spent time as a Nursing Home, and then spiraled into decrepitude as a rooming house, before being boarded up for years and housing the occasional vagrant. The Maryland Institute College of Art bought it, and restored it into a truly remarkable building, creating an anchor within the neighborhood and bridging the past with the present.
Three vignettes stood out last night during my short walk to Drew's. The first, a woman sitting comfortably in an elegant Victorian sitting room, reading the newspaper, the ubiquitous cat curled up along the length of the sofa. The second, a family moving from kitchen to dining room getting ready to eat dinner with the TV on and lots and lots of books in the built in shelving of the library off the well appointed dining room, and finally, in one of the grandest homes in the neighborhood, I stopped to admire the interior of the living room that was visible from the sidewalk with its ornate furnishings and artwork, and then noticed that the basement windows, which rise at half level out of the sidewalk were also lit and visible. In the basement, which had been well finished into a comfortable family area with sofas and Berber carpets, was a girl in her early twenties sitting cross legged on the floor, happily sucking on the end of a water bong and watching cartoons.
All in a Saturday night in my ‘hood. |
posted by Broadsheet @ 11:54 AM   |
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| 1 Editorial Opinions: |
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That's such a great description of the neighborhood. I love it too, for all those same reasons: the architecture, the eclectic quality of the inhabitants. Oh, and Bong Girl.
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That's such a great description of the neighborhood. I love it too, for all those same reasons: the architecture, the eclectic quality of the inhabitants. Oh, and Bong Girl.