At least the roof won't leak anymore

Written on July 12, 2003

The house I used to live in was torn down yesterday. 

I thought it would hurt a lot to see it, laying there in splinters.  About half of its outer shell is still there, but everything else is gone.  I knew when I moved out of it that it was going to be torn down, but knowing it and seeing it are entirely different things.  And, after all, it wasn’t my house; I didn’t own it.  I rented it from someone else, and those people were, well, a little nuts. 

I spent a lovely afternoon yesterday with some friends – sitting in a Brooklyn backyard eating barbequed burgers and drinking beer.  Basically, the reason why summers were invented.  On my way home I glanced over at the old house, as I always do, and – gone.  I drove over there and parked the car.  All of my old neighbors were sitting around on one porch, watching the machinery do its work.  I sat down wordlessly and watched for a while with them.  One of them, a lovely lady who’s 80 or so, said suddenly; “You were the nicest tenant those freaks ever had.”  Of course, we all laughed over that one, and the mood lightened up considerably. 

When I go to Coney Island today, I pass what’s known as the West 8^th Street projects, and I know that the entire neighborhood that my mother grew up in is gone – razed to make way for enormous apartment buildings.  The street that she lived on, Kister Court, is gone.  As a child, I always felt sorry for my parents, knowing that a place where they spent so much time together is just gone.  They seemed sad when we drove by it, but they always looked at each other and smiled. 

So, now, the house I lived in is gone.  It was just an OK house, it wasn’t built very well.  It stood on a double lot, so they’re building six condos on that spot.  I’ll drive by there with friends and family years from now, and I’ll say, oh, look, I used to live in a house there.  Maybe they’ll feel bad for me, the way I felt bad for my parents.  But…

But maybe it’s not about the house.  Maybe what you take away from someplace that you live stays with you, regardless of whether or not the place is still there.  My family tells lots of stories about the Kister Court days in Coney Island, and that place feels very real to me, even though it was gone by the time I was born. 

I’ll remember that house on Batchelder Street.  I’ll remember the friends who came over to visit; sitting on the front steps on weekend mornings reading the Times; the succession of amazing people who populated it when my Mom was ill, helping me out and taking care of her; trying to get the cat off the china cabinet all the time; the way the roof leaked during a bad rainstorm; the wall with the pretty tile on it in the kitchen; the time Dan broke up with Samantha and he thought his life was over and he became a fixture on my couch for, what, 3 or 4 days?; lugging my bike up and down the steps; the crazy Irish family who lived downstairs, and the way I’d run to the front window every time the Concorde passed over.  It was the place where my mother and I reversed roles; I became the mother and she, the one who needed taking care of.  It was the place where I grew up, I guess. 

And I guess it doesn’t matter that it’s gone, because I have it with me.  I know why my parents smiled at each other.  Because, even though there will be six new condos, the house at 2833 Batchelder Street will be there in my heart.

Comments

[Ira Shapiro]

My grandmother and two of her daughts (and their families) lived on Kister Court, Coney Island in the 50s. I would like to be in touch with you.