#11: City Neighbors

sharing streets and Whole Foods lines

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I vaguely know the woman that lives in the apartment next to mine. She’s a dark-haired, friendly woman. I have her spare key. After giving it to me, she thanked me, excited to have a young female neighbor with whom to share the corner of our apartment building floor. Her apartment is beautiful, decorated with giant plants, dark furniture, and cozy textures. It’s exactly my style–except in shades of blue instead of green, which would’ve been my color preference. I met her shortly after my other neighbors. And by met, I mean they got into the elevator and didn’t say hi. They’re a family of two kids and two dogs. Aside from not saying hello, the kids seem sweet, the dogs seem horrible. They bark constantly (the dogs, not the kids). I can always count on their yippy, high-pitched, ceaseless barking to greet me from inside their apartment when I press the elevator button or throw my garbage away in the refuse room.

These small, ineffectual things I know about two apartments in my building embody what it means to be modern neighbors in New York City. It’s interesting to think that I haven’t come to know anyone in the places I’ve lived, even after two years of being inside. I lived in three apartments during Covid, one for a short period, another for a year, and this current one for just a few months now. In my total time here, I’ve lived in five apartments. That’s five apartments, five apartment buildings, and no memorable neighbors. I don’t even have a name to share with you. You’d think Covid would’ve made a difference. For the past two years, we’ve been huddled on our couches, clutching hand sanitizer. Yet, even after the fact, we haven’t taken the hint that perhaps it would be nice to know one another. That maybe we should share something beyond the same refuse room and street corner for our dogs to defecate on.

I’ve learned that in New York City neighborly interaction doesn’t come in the form of block parties and move-in zucchini bread. Instead, neighbors are just sharers in the same experience of the neighborhood. We’re neighborly in that we presumably commiserate or enjoy what our area has to offer. We’re neighbors when we stand in line at the pizza place around the corner or on the pier at the East River. Because of this brand of neighbor (and city), we build our neighborhoods the way we do– we find comfort in certain aspects of them, like where we think the best Thai takeout is from or where we get our keys copied. I guess this is why I feel so at home where I am now. I feel comfortable where I live because of my proximity to comfortable things that feel special to my neighborhood and, thus, my experience in it. In past apartments, where I couldn’t afford the restaurants, didn’t know the best bars, or where to go for a Bodega turkey sandwich, I not only felt alone by myself but amongst my neighbors. What did we share? What would we, if given a chance, commiserate or relish in together?

I felt lucky to have found such a quiet street in an otherwise loud neighborhood. My first apartment nestled in the middle of two bustling avenues full of bars and crowded restaurants. Beyond the quiet safety of my building, the noise kicked in immediately. One foot out of my door and the line of NYU students, drunken Murry Hill finance bros, and venture capitalists awaited. For a small walk-up in the East Village of Manhattan, I was lucky to live on such a cute, small-town street. I don’t go there often (I don’t have a reason to), but I think of it sometimes and, despite having lived in objectively better apartments since then, recognize it as my favorite place until where I live now.

The charm of that street was reserved, in my opinion, to about a three-block radius around it. Next door was a small, quiet coffee shop. I don’t think many people knew about it, and when I did happen to see other patrons, we looked familiarly at one another. We’d found the only low-music, no-computers-allowed coffee shop in the tri-state area. Now they seem to be everywhere. A good thing, I think. A small sign read, “Talk to your neighbor.”

Across the street, a few doors down, a walk-down record shop stood untouched in time. Across the street again, a few more doors down was a dive bar that’s windows were always open. I went on a date there with a man who picked his nose in front of me in the first thirty seconds and proceeded to tell me about how he makes porn. I couldn’t have anticipated any aspect of that interaction. Aside from that, the beers were served sloppy and overflowing–just how I like them. Every weekend they hired a band to play loud shows that were never good, but the people inside, with the sloppy beers, were always laughing and cheering. Despite its flawed charm, it was a welcome bar helping to ground the East Village in its punk roots. The area was enduring an overflow of pink bars for influencers to buy overpriced cocktails and canned rosé, so that grounding was very necessary.

On the other side of the block, after hanging a left on my corner, my favorite one-dollar pizza spot was a few feet down. The first time I went there was after a night at KGB bar followed by a show that used to be called “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.” The bar serves huge Russian beers and plays bomb sounds instead of music. It was a great spot to bring dates you weren’t sure about. If they drink the beer and like the show, that’s a good sign. I haven’t had one-dollar pizza since moving out of that apartment, and honestly, I probably won’t. I’m not sure I’d even want the nostalgia of it mainly because I’m willing to concede that the pizza might’ve only been good after a night of drinking–the drunker, the better. Some things are meant to stay memories.

I live in Brooklyn now. I live on the same number street as that first apartment, which is fitting considering it feels similar. It’s comfortable here. I have pizza on this corner too. And dive bars, record shops, etc. Here, too, I live between two bigger streets in an apartment nestled on a relatively quiet one.

As neighbors, though, it doesn’t seem to matter that there’s so much to enjoy here because even the homiest of places relegate the meaning of neighbor to a nearby individual who implicitly does the same things that you do–like getting the same pizza, standing in the same Whole Foods line, and taking the same train. We’re neighbors in our shared appreciation for the sounds and smells of the neighborhood. We drink the same sloppy beers, I guess. Perhaps we’re only meant to share in this experience and never to commiserate or relish in it.

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