The lobby of the President Hotel, in my 8-year old mind, was the fanciest, most beautiful place I had ever seen. The sprawling, red floral carpet was vast and I loved the squishy way it felt when I walked on it. They sold New York City souvenirs there in the lobby and I fell in love with the snow globes featuring the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty. I asked my grandmother to buy me one and she did. My troubles seemed to fade with every shake of the globe, as I watched the snow gently float around. I wished I could shrink and fit inside of it and hide away. If only.
I have no recollection of my grandmother's personality while my dad was alive. I was too young. But I do know that she never got over her son's death. He was her only child..."a saint", she would refer to him as. In her effort to protect me at all costs, she suffocated me and ruled with an iron fist. She walked me to school, even in High School! I never went on a class-trip, after-school activities, or the beach. I was 18 the first time I actually felt sand between my toes.
After I rebelled against my grandmother's over-protectiveness and achieved some freedom, venturing out on the lower east side was a teen's paradise - for me anyway. Down the street at P.S. 1 Park, my friends and I would gather to play basketball, ride our bikes, roller-skate, socialize and of course, talk about boys. We called our friends to "come out", by shouting up to their windows, or by pay phone.
Two blocks over to Henry Street or Chatham Square was Chinatown. A crowded, heavily-scented part of the lower east side that I came to absolutely love. Pork buns we ate as we walked, noodle soups, dumplings and warm soy-milk sold on the street on cold winter days were all a part of my young life. The formation of a foodie? Even my first real boyfriend was Chinese, and, in my need for a father figure, he happened to be eleven years older than me.
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| The Lower East Side, NYC |
I moved out of the tenement and lower east side when I turned 19 and met my then-future husband - the father of my son Angelo. We got married in a little church atop a hill, in a village in Ioannina, Greece, which almost seemed like a different planet altogether. We traveled to various cities and islands in Greece during the marriage. I had never seen places more beautiful in my life, but still, even now, I have the urge every now and then to take a couple of trains and head down to the lower east side, walk around, and reminisce about my tenement life.
Visit the Tenement Museum
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| Ioannina, Greece |
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