The Juilliard School of performing arts conservatory, New York City.
14:35 (New York Time)
Tuesday, August 29, 1995 ‘C’
Superintendent’s office, Manhattan Plaza Towers
400, West 43rd Street, Manhattan, New York City
‘’I am sorry, miss, but we already have a waiting list with 186 names of prospective tenants for our apartments. You can still leave your name to add it to the list, but I don’t expect an opening for at least another nine months.’’
‘’Nine months?!’’ said Lucy in a discouraged tone. ‘’But we are supposed to start studying at the Juilliard School next week.’’
The building superintendent, a tin man in his late fifties, shrugged his shoulders in response.
‘’I am truly sorry, girls, but there is nothing that I can do for you now.’’
Disappointed, the group of five teenage girls walked away from the superintendent’s office before stopping further down the hallway in order to discuss the options left to them. Taking out of one pocket the list that the band members had compiled of the apartment locations where they could hope to rent a place for their years of study in New York, Nancy grimaced on seeing that there was only one address left to investigate.
‘’Damn! We are left with only one address to check out. It is on West 51st Street, near the corner with 11th Avenue, in Hell’ Kitchen District.’’
‘’Hell’s Kitchen?!’’ exclaimed Sarah Weissman. ‘’Do we really want to get a flat there? It has a scary reputation!’’
‘’Would you prefer to continue paying for a hotel room for the next four years, Sarah? I doubt that your parents would be ready to fork out that kind of money. As for Ingrid, she may be very well-off, but she has other priorities than to burn her money on hotel rooms. I say: let’s check out that last address. Erika, you know how to get there?’’
‘’Sure!’’ replied the nineteen-year-old tomboy and drum kit player. ‘’This is not my first time in driving around New York. Let’s go back to our minivan.’’
Going out of the building and to their parked rental minivan, the five teenage girls piled in, with Erika Lange taking place behind the driver’s wheel, while Nancy took the front seat, armed with a map of New York City. Nancy however didn’t need to give directions to Erika, who drove like a pro through the city traffic and quickly got to the corner of West 51st Street and Eleventh Avenue. As their minivan turned onto West 51st Street and passed in front of a local food market, all eyes went to a three-story brown brick building sporting a blue canopy marked with the number 607 over one of its doors.
‘’There it is, girls: 607 West 51st Street!’’ announced Erika while slowing down and lining up to a parking spot. Lucy nearly made a grimace as she detailed the old building.
‘’It looks like a converted garage or warehouse. One of the two garage doors is even bricked over. Are you sure that this could be a good choice for us, Nancy?’’
‘’Don’t go only on its external appearance, Lucy. Besides, old garages and warehouse converted into residential flats are far from uncommon in New York. With the way Manhattan is crowded out, no space goes to waste here. Let’s reserve our judgment until we could see the inside and what they are asking for the rent.’’
Once Erika had parked their minivan, the group stepped out of it and went to the main entrance, where Nancy pressed the doorbell. A fat man in his forties and sporting a beard and a bald head answered the ring after half a minute or so, opening the door after looking at the waiting teenagers through a peephole.
‘’Yes?’’
‘’Good day, sir!’’ replied Nancy, giving the man her best smile. ‘’We are a group of students about to start college in New York and we are looking for a place where we could live during our studies. Do you still have at least two apartments available?’’
While the man appeared happy to have customers, he still eyed Nancy with some suspicion.
‘’I have in fact three units available at this time, miss: the two top-level ones and the one above the garage. The garage is also available for rental. My question is: can you afford the rent?’’
‘’My mother is quite well-off, mister, and I am ready to pay in advance for two months for starters. Could we first visit your units and the garage? We could then discuss the rent.’’
‘’Certainly! Please come in!’’
After letting in the five teenagers and firmly closing back the front door behind them, the man then led them towards a rather narrow wooden staircase going up. As he was climbing the stairs, he asked a question to Nancy.
‘’And what are you girls studying?’’
‘’Music! We are starting to study at the Juilliard School next week.’’
‘’Ah yes! I know that school: it has a very good reputation and is said to be very choosy about the students it accepts. Uh, are you planning on practicing your music here?’’
Nancy, along with her band members, tensed up a bit at that question: most landlords didn’t appreciate having practicing musicians as tenants, objecting to the noise they could make. She however answered the man honestly.
‘’Yes, as much as possible, if that would not incommode your other tenants.’’
‘’Then, I may have a special offer to make to you. However, I will wait until we are on the top floor before talking about it.’’
While intrigued, Nancy didn’t ask for more precisions and waited until the whole group was on the top floor, where the man, who was probably the superintendent of the building, unlocked a door bearing a tarnished brass number three sign and opened it wide before inviting her in.
‘’This is one of my available units. It comes mostly unfurnished and was previously a warehouse space but the plumbing has been upgraded, along with the heating system, and there is a refrigerator and an electric stove in the kitchen corner.’’
Walking in with her four band members, Nancy found herself in a large high-ceiling room with naked brick walls. The room was lit by a large, high multipaneled window of the kind commonly found in warehouses. The floor was however made of good quality wood and the place was clean. The superintendent spoke further as the teenagers looked around the large room, which measured at least thirty square meters, with a free height of well over four meters.
‘’This is meant to be used as the main living room. It was originally much larger but part of it was partitioned to create two separate bedrooms and a bathroom. I will show those to you now.’’
The man then walked to the entrance of a short hallway at the back of the room, past a kitchen corner with a counter with sink, an electric stove and a refrigerator and opened in succession three doors along that hallway.
‘’If you may now look at the bedrooms and the bathroom, ladies.’’
Her hopes rising about this place being a good one for her group, Nancy entered one of the bedrooms and looked around it: it was of very respectable size and, while the outer wall was made of naked brick, like in the living room, it incorporated a large window which provided ample daylight to the room. Going to the second bedroom, she found an identical room, then went to see the bathroom. The man had not lied about the plumbing having been extensively renovated: the bathtub incorporated a shower head and was of modern design, as were the large sink counter and the toilet. Ceramic tiles covered the floor of the bathroom. Nancy felt good about the place but something was bothering her. Looking up at the ceiling, she pointed at it.
‘’How come the ceiling of this bathroom and of the two bedrooms is apparently much lower than that of the living room, mister?’’’
‘’You are an observant girl, miss.’’ replied the superintendent, smiling. When those separate rooms were built out of this old warehouse storage room, their ceilings were so high that the owner had the idea to use that extra height to build more rooms above the bedrooms and the bathroom, thus hoping to be able to rent additional rooms. Unfortunately, those top rooms didn’t pass muster with the city inspectors, who ruled that their free height of six and a half feet didn’t respect the minimum requirements for occupied dwellings. The owner, stuck with those empty rooms, then decided to offer them as extra storage space for the people occupying the bedrooms below them. Think of them as a sort of attic space. The staircase to those top spaces is still in place, by the way. Now, your wish to be able to play your instruments in this building gave me an idea: if you only use those top rooms to practice music and don’t actually live and sleep there, then I believe that I could legally rent them to you girls without being hassled by city inspectors.’’
‘’Mister, you are a genius!’’ said Nancy while pointing an index at the smiling superintendent. ‘’Show us those top rooms, please.’’
‘’Then, follow me!’’
Going out of the bathroom and following the superintendent, Nancy was about to follow him up a wooden staircase at the back when she noticed a door that had apparently not been use in quite a while. Stopping for a moment, she pointed at the door while calling up to the man.
‘’What is this door, mister? It nearly looks like it was condemned.’’
‘’Oh, that door gave access to the cargo elevator lift which originally linked this floor and the one below with the garage. The owner decided to close the access to it and condemn the lift after a past tenant misused it and caused an accident that brought us lots of legal grief. Do you really want to see it? I have to warn you that this part was never renovated and is in a rather poor condition.’’
‘’Still, I would like to see it. Maybe we could get something out of that space.’’
‘’As you wish, miss.’’ said the man before taking out a key and unlocking the door. He had to push hard against it before it opened with a noise of rusted hinges. Nancy was then able to walk in a small room mostly filled with an old-looking cargo lift. Her sharp eyes then spotted something in a far corner. Walking to that corner and bending down, she cautiously picked up a spend syringe needle and showed it to the superintendent.
‘’Let me guess: that past tenant of yours was using this room as a drug den, right?’’
‘’Correct, miss. That idiot very nearly caused the municipal authorities to closing down for good this building and putting it on their list of old buildings scheduled for demolition. The owner was thankfully able to plead his case and change the minds of the city inspectors, but he had to agree to officially condemn this part of his building, along with the cargo lift.’’
‘Meaning that he bribed those officials.’ thought Nancy to herself.
‘’Then, we will leave this place as is. Let’s go see those top rooms now.’’
With the teenagers again following the superintendent up the staircase after he had locked back the lift room, the group ended up in a low ceiling hallway poorly lit by a single window on one side at the top of the staircase. However, Nancy judged the head clearance to be acceptable for what they intended to use this space for. While of low ceiling, the two empty rooms they visited were actually slightly larger than each of the two bedrooms below them.
‘’As you can see, these top rooms are quite large, thanks to the additional floor space of the bathroom below them adding to the floor space of each bedroom. So, miss, what do you think?’’
Nancy first exchanged looks with her four band members and, seeing smiles on their faces, turned back towards the superintendent.
‘’This could indeed prove very useful to us, mister. Up to now, we like what we saw. I suppose that the second unit you intended to rent to us is the one directly below this one?’’
‘’That’s correct, miss. It has the same floor layout than this unit. Do you wish to visit it?’’
‘’I would like to, yes.’’
Leaving the suite number three, the group went down the stairs to the median level and quickly visited Suite Number One, which effectively proved to be similar to Suite Number Three and was equally bare but clean. Asking for a minute in order to discuss with her friends, Nancy gathered them in a small group and spoke in a low voice.
‘’So, what do you think, girls?’’
‘’I like this place!’’ replied Lucy at once. ‘’It doesn’t look like much from the outside but the space available here will greatly help us practice properly after school hours. We will just have to get some proper furniture to make this an adequate place to live.’’
‘’I also like it.’’ added Carmen Estrada, the dedicated dancer, guitar and flute player of the band. Sarah Weissman, their timid piano near-prodigy, also gave her approval, along with Erika Lange. Nancy then walked back to the waiting superintendent, hoping that the rent he would ask would prove to be reasonable…by the standards of the New York City housing market.
‘’Well, we definitely are interested in those two units we visited, along with your top rooms. Is your garage also available for rental?’’
‘’It is, miss.’’
‘’then, here is the question of the day for you: how much are you asking per month for the garage, two suites and your top ‘storage’ rooms?’’
‘’That would amount to a total of 5,600 dollars a month, miss. I must say that you would normally find other rental units around Manhattan to be much more expensive than these ones.’’
‘’I don’t doubt that for a minute, mister. We will take your two units plus the garage. As I said before, I am ready to pay two months of advance rent. Do you accept credit cards as a payment mode?’’
‘’Of course, miss!’’ replied the superintendent, quite happy to be able to close this deal. ‘’Let’s go down to my own place, where I have my office.’’
Officially paying for the rent with her gold standard credit card after filling and signing a rental contract, Nancy then exchanged a solid handshake with the happy superintendent, surprising him with her strength.
‘’Wow! You are quite strong for a teenage girl, Miss Dows.’’
‘’I do a lot of musculation, Mister Connors. We will start shopping for furniture tomorrow, so you may start to see delivery trucks stop by to drop off various pieces of furniture. Just let them in then: one of us will be present to direct the delivery men to the right place for each piece.’’
‘’Then, I believe that I can close this deal by handing you five sets of keys for your two units and the garage.’’
‘’Thank you very much, Mister Connors.’’ said Nancy while accepting the sets of keys handed by the superintendent. ‘’Uh, supper time is approaching for us. Where could we find a good, decent restaurant around here?’’
‘’Oh, there are quite a few of them around Hell’s Kitchen, Miss Dows. For a wide choice of good ethnic restaurants of all kinds, you just need to walk down two blocks to the Ninth Avenue, then go to the West 46th Street: that street his widely nicknamed ‘Restaurant Row’. I strongly counsel it. On the other hand, don’t get food from that store on the corner with Eleventh Avenue: the food there is bad and the service atrocious.’’
‘’Thank you for the tip, Mister Connors. We will see each other again sometimes tomorrow. Have a good evening.’’
‘’And a good evening to you too and to your friends, miss.’’
Nancy then left the man’s office and returned in the main hallway, where she distributed the set of keys she had just obtained.’’
‘’Well, girls, we now have a place to live for the next four years or so. We just need to get furniture for it and turn it into our new den of music. Mister Connors told me where to find some good ethnic restaurants nearby. I propose that we walk to there instead of driving: that will give us a chance to explore the neighborhood a bit.’’
‘’Good idea! I’m getting quite famished.’’ said approvingly Erika Lange.
Taking first the time to drive their minivan inside their garage and then lock it, the teenagers then started walking eastward along West 51st Street, crossing Eleventh Avenue and continuing on, looking in passing at the stores along the street. Once at the corner with Ninth Avenue, Nancy made her group cross it before turning south and going down until they arrived at the corner of Ninth Avenue and West 46th Street, where they turned left before stopping for a moment, looking at the myriad of restaurant signs and façades now visible to them.
‘’Wow! Mister Connors didn’t exaggerate about this ‘Restaurant Row’: look at that choice we have for supper.’’ said Nancy. ‘’I see Chinese, Thai, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Mexican restaurants and more. What do you think, girls?’’
Her friends proved indecisive for a moment, put off by such a varied choice. After a minute or so of discussion, they ended up agreeing on a promising-looking Thai restaurant and entered it to have supper there. That restaurant easily proved to be up to their expectations and they ended up passing over an hour in it, taking their time to sample and share many various dishes, some of them quite spicy, to the delight of Carmen Estrada.
All five of them were quite content and full when they left the Thai restaurant to return towards their new residence, planning to get in their minivan there and return to the hotel where they had been staying for three days now while they went apartment-hunting, since their new residence was still devoid of furniture. However, an idea came to Nancy as they were crossing Eleventh Avenue and were approaching their apartment building.
‘’Hey, maybe we could go around our block and explore our new neighborhood a bit before driving back to our hotel. What do you think, girls?’’
‘’That’s a good idea, Nancy.’’ replied Erika Lange. ‘’There is still plenty of daylight left and it should be safe to walk around a bit. After all, we are probably going to live around here for the next four years, so we might as well start to learn more about our neighborhood. I suggest that we first go westward: I would like to see what kind of view we have of the Hudson River from Hell’s Kitchen.’’
‘’I buy that!’’ replied Lucy, soon echoed by the others. The group thus continued walking on the sidewalk of the West 51st Street, heading towards the Hudson River. However, as they were passing by their new apartment building, Lucy noticed that Nancy was craning her neck to look up at the edge of the building’s roof.
‘’What are you looking at, Nancy?’’
‘’The roof of our building: it is a flat roof. I wonder if it would be solid enough to allow my Air Bike to land and park on it.’’
‘’It should! After all, it weighs little more than half a ton and our roof should easily be able to support it. The question is, would the owner let you use the roof as a landing pad for your Air Bike?’’
‘’I guess that this will be a question for him tomorrow. If he says no, then our garage is still large enough for both our minivan and my Air Bike. Having my Air Bike in New York could greatly facilitate our periodic trips to Washington. Since I have only three seats in my Air Bike, I would of course be ready to make return trips then, so that all of us could visit our families from time to time.’’
‘’That sounds like a great idea, Nancy.’’ said approvingly Sarah Weissman. With that settled, the five teenagers walked on past their apartment building and passed in front of an empty lot containing some debris from the demolition of an old building. A sign and a light chain-link fence announced the future start of the building of a large clothing store on that site. However, the group soon had to stop when at the corner with Twelfth Avenue: beyond it was a wide highway where many vehicles circulated at high speed. They thus had to stop on that corner and contemplated for a while the Hudson River and the piers lining its shore, with the old, decommissioned aircraft carrier U.S.S. INTREPID, which had been turned into a floating museum, docked at Pier 86, some 700 meters south of their location. Once everybody had ample time to look around, Nancy then led her group northward at a slow pace, passing by a large underground parking complex before arriving at the corner with the West 52nd Street. They then got a view of a relatively small park that covered maybe two to three hectares of surface. While there were many trees in the park, the area was littered with trash of all kinds and had a derelict look to it. An eclectic assortment of people was milling around the park or sat on the grass, while numerous small tents and improvised shelters could be seen, dispersed inside the park grounds. Erika Lange shook her head slowly as she read a dirty sign fixed to a low fence surrounding the park.
‘’The DeWitt Clinton Park… This place doesn’t look like a spot where I would go at night. I see many homeless people camping in it and I also see many youths who seem to be using drugs.’’
‘’You are probably right about those youths using this park as a drug injection or smoking place, Erika.’’ said Ingrid, who had the sharpest eyesight in her group. She also shook her head in sadness as she eyed the dozens of homeless people visible in the park, dressed in dirty rags and looking idle next to their improvised shelters, with some shopping carts full of personal effects also visible besides some of the shelters.
‘’Poor people! Nobody should have to end up like this, without a proper home and with no steady source of revenue to buy food and clothes.’’
‘’Many would say that they have only themselves to blame for that, either because of drug use or of an alcohol problem.’’ said Carmen Estrada, attracting a reprobative look from Nancy.
‘’Still, these are people and they deserve better than this, Carmen.’’
‘’And what could be done, Nancy? You know that both the municipal, state and federal governments will never vote enough funds to properly take care of this homeless problem. There are a number of private charitable societies, like the Salvation Army, who do great work, but they never have enough resources to fully take care of this. Some of these homeless people also suffer from mental illnesses that made them lose their jobs and estranged them from their families. Only the government would have the proper means to care for them, but you know as well as I do that many of our politicians don’t give a hoot about homeless people and will never vote the kind of funds needed to properly help them.’’
Nancy’s shoulders sagged at those words: Carmen was unfortunately right about that. Still, her own special essence told her that doing nothing was not an acceptable option.
‘’You may be right, Carmen, but that won’t stop me from trying to do what I can to help. I am going to visit those homeless people and talk with them. Feel free to either come with me or to return to the hotel by yourselves, girls.’’
The four other teenage girls looked at each other, hesitant at first about what to do. Then, Lucy spoke up while starting to follow Nancy across the street.
‘’I’m coming with you, Nancy!’’
‘’What the heck?!’’ said Erika Lange. ‘’We might as well stay in a group, for our own protection.’’
Carmen Estrada and Sarah Weissman, while still a bit reluctant, followed the example of Lucy and Erika and ran to rejoin them and Nancy. As they stepped on the sidewalk surrounding the park, a thin black young man dressed in a pair of jeans and a leather jacket approached them, a wide smile on his lips. However, Nancy spotted at once the switchblade knife worn at his belt.
‘’Hi, girls! Need some nice stuff to spice up your day?’’
‘’No, thanks!’’ replied Nancy at once while throwing a cold look at the young drug dealer. The latter didn’t seem to appreciate her tone of voice and erased his smile from his lips.
‘’A little stuck up, girl? If you came only to snitch on us, then things could become dangerous for you and your friends.’’
‘’Things will become dangerous for YOU if you don’t fuck off right now and leave us alone.’’
‘’Ooh! I’m scared! And what would you do to me then, girl?’’
Before the drug dealer could say another word, he was suddenly and violently thrown backward by what felt to him like an invisible hand. He tumbled three times around before ending on his ass on the concrete sidewalk, bruised and hurting. Nancy looked down at him with contempt as her friends looked on at that scene.
‘’I would do THAT, asshole. Now, scram!’’
Completely bewildered by this, the young black man didn’t insist and cautiously retreated back into the park, where he joined up with other drug addicts and dealers. Lucy, Sarah, Erika and Carmen, already knowing about the true nature of Nancy, didn’t show surprise at her actions and simply followed her as she resumed her walk towards the part of the park occupied by the homeless people. As they were approaching the first cluster of improvised shelters, Nancy looked behind her to speak in a low voice to her sister and her friends.
‘’Whatever we end up doing to help those people, don’t give them cash money except for small change: they could well use that cash to then buy drugs or alcohol instead of buying food. I intend to help them via another, more useful way.’’
‘’Whatever you say, Nancy.’’ replied Lucy, who knew how her sister thought from over two years of experience living with her.
The first group of homeless people, four men and one woman, all of mature age and wearing near rags, looked at Nancy’s group with curiosity as the teenagers approached. However, none of them made any hostile move or appeared afraid of the girls. The older man of the group, who may have been in his fifties and wore a disheveled and dirty beard and long hair, addressed Nancy as the latter stopped in front of him.
‘’You should be careful about coming here, girl: some of the people in this park are not exactly nice with visitors like you.’’
‘’I know, mister: I just told one of them to fuck off. Do you mind if I speak a bit with you and your friends?’’
‘’Not at all! After all, we have precious little to make out of our days except for talking between ourselves and trying to get some charitable tips from passersby. But why would you want to speak with us?’’
‘’Because I want to see what we could do to help you and your friends in a more useful way than simply throwing some small change around. By the way, my name is Nancy and I am here with my sister Lucy and my friends Sarah, Erika and Carmen. What is your name, friend?’’
‘’I am George… George Walsh. My friends here are Stanley, John, Thomas and Mary. It is truly kind on your part to come visit us like this, Nancy. You all look quite young. Are you college students, by chance?’’
‘’Yes, we are! We are from Washington D.C. and came to study music.’’
‘’Aah, musicians! Some here in this park once had dreams of becoming famous musicians. Unfortunately, fortune never smiled to them and they ended up here, often due to depression and with no money left to them. I sincerely wish that your own dreams will come true.’’
‘’Thank you, George. Do you get any help from municipal authorities or from private charitable associations?’’
Some bitterness then showed up on the face of the aging homeless man.
‘’The only thing we saw from the city officials is efforts to chase us out of this park, Nancy. We do get some help from the Salvation Army, which runs a shelter where they serve us hot meals when they can and provide us with a warm place to sleep in Winter, while Pastor Pat Bumgardner, from the Metropolitan Community Church on West 36th Street, helps those of us who are gay or are sick from AIDS.’’
Nancy nodded her head slowly then while mentally recording that information.
‘’I see! How many people live in this park these days? I am talking about homeless people, not young junkies.’’
‘’It varies a bit, but it turns around close to thirty or so homeless people. Why do you ask?’’
Instead of answering him, Nancy turned to face Erika and, taking out her wallet, extracted 300 dollars from it and gave the money to her friend.
‘’Erika, take the other girls with you in our minivan and go to that BBQ grill counter we saw on our way to supper, then buy as takeout orders enough chicken, fries and soda drinks to feed thirty people, then come back here with that food. I will stay here in the meantime. Oh, and ask for sets of plastic utensils as well.’’
‘’Got it!’’
As the four teenagers quickly walked away, George Walsh looked with disbelief at Nancy.
‘’You…you are going to feed all of us at your own expense?