My First Apartment in the Big City
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After an early breakfast at the same "Automat" where we had eaten the night before, I began walking through the area surrounding Greenwich Village and Washington Square. It was much too early to go to Carol's apartment, and since she did not have a telephone, I could not call her. So I began to look for places to rent. At first, I thought I might find an apartment like Carol's, but it soon became obvious I could not afford such a place. Rents for apartments like hers were just too high -- not by today's standards but still far more than my modest budget would allow.

With this information, I then began looking only for "Room for Rent" signs, of which there were many in that part of Manhattan. But some of the rooms advertised were so undesirable, I could not even consider them. Others were either too expensive or not near enough to Washington Square, which for several reasons I was already viewing as my home base.

After several hours of searching -- all on foot -- I finally agreed to rent a room on the sixth floor of an ordinary ten-story brick building located at 110 East Eleventh Street. (I remember the exact address only because I still have some letters sent to me while I lived there.) This room had both its good and bad points. In its favor were the location -- within easy walking distance of both Washington Square and Carol's apartment -- and the price, $6.00 a week. In addition, it was clean and in a respectable neighborhood. One of its chief disadvantages was that I had to climb six flights of stairs to reach it. The building did have one elevator, but it was in the rear and could be used only for freight and maintenance service. Also, the room was extremely small -- about seven feet wide and ten feet long. In it were only three pieces of furniture: a single, iron-frame bed (quite similar to the one I slept in at the Y.M.C.A.) , a straight chair not built for comfort, and a three-drawer wooden chest just slightly more than waist high. In the corner next to the chest was a wash basin with hot and cold running water. (The commodes and showers used by all those living on the sixth floor were located down the hall.)

The room's only window -- just as in Carol's apartment -- opened onto an interior skylight reaching from the ground floor to the top of the building. All the other rooms and efficiency apartments in the center of the building had at least one window opening onto this same narrow skylight, which could not have been more than ten or twelve feet across. At best, one could say this was an intimate, homey situation for all the tenants involved. More realistically I would describe it as an almost unbearable living arrangement. Because of the summer heat all the windows leading into this skylight area were kept open most of the time, in order to get the benefit of some moving air. But through these open windows everyone could hear almost everything said or done in the entire area -- from top to bottom.

Without any attempt to eavesdrop, I could easily and clearly hear not only routine conversations and repetitive complaints about all kinds of troubles, but also violent arguments and telling sounds of passionate love-making. Added to this variety of disturbances were constant shouts of "shut up" hurled up and down the skylight from one tenant to another. Obscenities were also quite common --many words and terms I had known since early boy- hood, others of a unique New York style I had never heard before.

If I had known all this in advance, I would never have agreed to rent the room, but once I had paid the first week's rent in advance I could not afford to lose the six dollars. As it turned out, however, I spent very little time in that memorable room -- just enough to sleep a few hours each night, and bathe, dress, and leave each morning. There were so many wonderful things to do and see in New York, I had no reason to stay "at home" on East Eleventh Street any longer than absolutely necessary.

Moreover, I always felt welcome at Carol's apartment, and during the brief ten days I was in New York this first time, she and I spent much time together --in the daytime out in the city looking for jobs and opportunities for further schooling, and at night visiting new places in Greenwich Village where we could dine and dance. Occasionally, we would attend Broadway shows. I say "occasionally" because our limited resources did indeed dictate how much we could spend on such things. But wherever we were and whatever we did, we continued more and more to be attracted to one another.

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