Last time we talked about our first apartments. The comments revealed how widespread Senior Planet readership is: Kansas City, MO; Newport RI, New Orleans, Denver, Cambridge, MA; Minot, ND, and even the Phillippines and Newquay, Cornwall in England, among other places.
Each one was a time capsule…
My first place was a townhouse apartment in Bloomingdale–a neighborhood in East Tennessee. It was a nice place for the meager $135 that we could afford in 1979 as newlyweds. The walls were paper thin, though, leading to a fond memory.
One night after dinner, I sat down at my piano to relax and play some hymns. When I finished and began clearing the dishes, I heard the next-door neighbor singing the hymns I just finished playing. Next time, we just invited them over and sang together!
-Debbie S.
My first apartment was a furnished, one-bedroom duplex apartment with a large kitchen and window. I was in the process of divorce, becoming a single parent of an adorable two-year old girl. She was a twin, but her brother died a few hours after he was born. There was a yard between the two duplex buildings where my daughter could play in her kiddie pool each summer and I could hang my clothes on the clothesline outside. I paid $80 a month in 1974. This apartment was absolutely perfect for us!
-Pat B.
My 1st apartment in 1969 was in lovely North Portland (well, it is lovely now….). It was an old building with wide staircases, huge bathtubs, and was walking distance to my first adult job. It was a furnished studio apartment and with the help of my sister, I made it more like my own. The managers were very attentive. They saw me coming home in a van with Peace/Love types of graffiti spray painted on it and called my sister to tell her and also called me into their unit to ‘talk about it”…
-Constance
Reader Sally and her two roomies had a blast in Cambridge ($5 a week for groceries!) and Reader Ann shared a sweet vignette about life in a small town in Iowa. However, readers also mentioned the drawbacks to these first apartments; iffy heat, no AC, bugs, drugs, riots and burglaries… but there was one compensation….
Oh, Those Rents!
Reader Doris Y. knows all about it.
1959: My first apt in KC, MO midtown was 4-plex nice older building owned by landlord next door. I shared a bathroom with the neighbor across the hall. I had 2 rooms: kitchen sink, stove, fridge, table & chairs, living room/BR with full bed, chairs, closet & gas heater. The bldg had brick walls 2′ thick. Warm in winter & cool in summer. No Air. Rent $50 a month. I loved this apt, neighborhood, landlord. Lots of stores, eateries, hospital, busline close by. Walk to work. Today? Studio $13K+util.
-Doris Y.
Others recounted rents as low as $48, $50, $55, $60, and $75 with plenty of backstory, so read all the comments and add your own….especially if you paid less than the current record holder, Peter with $48….and thanks for playing -see you next time!
ORIGINAL COLUMN
I”m currently engaged in the thankless task of looking for another place to live. I”m a native New Yorker and lived here all my life and always, for some reason, on the top floor of walkups. (I never had the dough for an elevator building.)
Well, my knees are giving out now and I”m face to face with having to move…which I haven’t done in 40 years.
Wow, have things changed. I must stop occasionally to take a breath because it’s a jungle out there, both in terms of price and availability. I remember when people lined up to be the first to get the Village Voice or the Sunday Times to scan the real estate section….but now it’s 24/7 and online…and a depressingly large number of times there are bidding wars or the apartments are ridiculous…smaller than veal pens with a single window and tiny radiators. All they have is a fresh coat of paint and cheap new flooring.
First Apartment
Which leads me to think with longing of my first apartment. It was in Brooklyn Heights, which was at the time a quiet neighborhood with quirky small businesses; there was a hubbub when McDonald’s put an outpost on Montague Street.
My apartment was two rooms in an old building but it was more than enough after the chaos of my family’s apartment. It had nice wood floors and a circular wall and a compact kitchen. The windows overlooked the skyline…and, sadly, the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. For the first six months I kept having dreams that I was sleeping in a railroad car!
Best of all, the rent was affordable to me, an aspiring writer/waitress. I furnished it from items my wealthier neighbors put on the curb and improvised others. I have no idea how I lugged one of those huge round telephone cable spools up the five flights to my apartment. I had no money but I was pretty handy – I built wall units with window seats in the living/bedroom and a tile topped counter with storage in the kitchen. My downfall was when I tried to build my own kitchen table. It was a disaster and I ended up going to Goodwill.
You paid WHAT???
Still it was a really special place – I had lots of fun and friends came over all the time. I had an Oscar-watching party, expecting fifteen people – and the lights went out, so I ran an extension cord into the hallway, lit candles and the show went on.
It was a fun and funky crib but after the second robbery, I sadly had to bid it goodbye and moved in with my fiance. People gag when I tell them my rent was $150 a month in 1980.
Of course, after I left, the neighborhood underwent a major gentrification, they installed a locking door downstairs and on the roof, and it went condo, so I missed out. I still wonder if I could have stuck it out there, but I’ll never forget the wonderful feeling of the first space I could truly call my own.
YOUR TURN
But that’s me. What about you? What was your first place like? Share your experiences in the comments!
Virge Randall is Senior Planet’s Managing Editor. She is also a freelance culture reporter who seeks out hidden gems and unsung (or undersung) treasures for Straus Newspapers and blogs about New York City life. Send your “Open Thread” suggestions to editor@seniorplanet.org.
