Brownstone

Dedicated to my first best friend, my dear cousin Angelo DeNicola, who I recently found on Facebook after too long!

Sometimes life is filled with the joy of knowing you’re in the right place, that all the incidents and moments, even small ones, led you to your current place at the right time.

And sometimes you wonder why you made certain decisions, and would things have been different…better…had you picked differently.

I traveled to Greenwich Village in New York City, my hometown, recently, on the heels of writing a vignette that will be published in the near future. I wrote about the longing I held while growing up, to live in the country among trees, and now holding that same longing to return to my home. I thought about the loss.

I sit in a train similar to the one I occupied while visiting my college boyfriend north of New York City, in Catskill. Perhaps his move was a catalyst for me to eventually also leave New York City.

During this recent New York City visit, to see To Kill a Mockingbird at the Shubert Theater and to visit Greenwich Village, I remember people and places, though many of the places are vastly different now, and most of the people replaced by others.

I walk down Washington Place with my daughter, Reese, and we traverse to Carmine Street. I explain to her this is where I grew up, ate pizza, and watched the lines of people at the Waverly Theater as I paced the steps down to the subway. How did I never notice the Park’s fountain is in clear view from Washington Place at Sixth Avenue?

“How many times did you visit Washington Square Park?” my husband asked me. “Weekly? Daily?”

Me in Washington Square Park, Oct. 10, 2021

“I don’t know.” Not enough.

I do know I visited it frequently in the past eighteen months -- in my mind -- as I wrote my latest novel, Penny’s Song, which takes place in 1970 Greenwich Village. Did I write that in part to remember my childhood, that wonderful land that used to be mine? The world I left behind?

Reese sits on the windowsill. We look out the window from the Washington Square Hotel’s fourth floor. I reimagine myself at her age, looking out the window from the fourth floor of our apartment. What did I think about then? Boy, would I love to live in one of these apartments, or right here in this hotel!

Coincidentally my writing group leader this morning asked where we would take our loved ones if we became bestselling authors. I answered, “Greenwich Village. And I’d ask my daughter-in-law to find me a brownstone.”

Another writer says she will visit, bringing me bagels.

When I was little, I dreamed about living in one of the brownstones facing Washington Square. “When you’re rich and famous, will you buy a place here, and then I can visit you?” I ask Reese.

“Uh-huh,” she says, clearly humoring me.

I peek over at Washington Square Park, wishing the rain to pass so we could walk through again. Hoping it would be teeming with musicians and gymnasts. Because all we saw the night before were legal marijuana sellers and a lone trombone player. The view from the Washington Square Hotel window strikes me. I remember the park not having trees. I remember New York City as treeless. It’s filled with huge trees; I’m sure they were here then, because new trees wouldn’t be this tall.

Could I have been wrong?

The old homestead

Reese in front of my old school, Our Lady of Pompeii

I watch Reese bounce back toward the hotel after hearing me tell her about the basketball court, the park she now proudly calls The Pigeon Park like the character in my book, Penny, does, and the playground where I enjoyed my childhood. She asks if she can go play and fondly recalls it from our last trip. I tell her we don’t have much time. She’s okay with that.

***

I’m shaken from my dream by the Amtrak conductor, who seems uncertain of the next stop. “Utica? Rochester. Oh, dear god. No. Rinebeck.” He seems as uncertain as me.

Did I make the right decision to leave New York City in 1983?

“So nice to see farmland,” a lady near me says.

I checked on my girl, who went alone to the club car for drinks. She’s been gone awhile. The man in front of me in line who we saw at our last break (apparently on the same snack schedule as me) tells another, “There’s the girl with all the energy.”

I see a flash of yellow and know she’s safe. She’s wearing an outfit I might have worn in 1972. Then she spryly walks away, nearly passing me.

“Hi, Mom.”

Reese in front of my old building, 13 Carmine St.

I know she wanted to get the snacks alone. I am sure I felt the same as an eight year-old. Back when I dreamt both about the brownstone AND leaving New York.

I look at Reese. “Do you miss the City?”

“No.”

“You want to go home?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I miss the dogs.”

She has another admirer, a woman glancing at her, smiling.

“If we had them with us, would you still want to go home?”

She nods, and I get the impression she’s telling me I made the right decision, and that Syracuse, or is it Rochester (wink-wink) is indeed where I need to be.

At least for now.

“What was your favorite part of this trip?” I ask her.

“Going to the park with you.”

Anyone know of a brownstone for sale?