I was a seventeen year old "runaway" from the other side of Niagara falls when I ended up in New York City, working for one unforgettable summer in the diner pictured below here. I experienced and learned more in those three months than in any three years of my whole life. My family thought that I was staying with my Grandmother across the river, when in fact I was living on the top floor of a half abandoned tenement building on the west side that is now a high rise condo.
The building that I loved and lived in was demolished along with many sweet memories in 2002. There were only seven apartments in the building and three were already empty the first summer that I lived there. There were only two other tenants besides myself when I returned seven years later. I was happy that my old neighbor Mrs Novac from Budapest was still living on the top floor across from me. She was growing a beautiful container garden on our roof, but I found it quite strange that "Mrs N" was growing six kinds of catnip... but that is for another story. Our other neighbor was a traveling musician by the name of Roy from Tennessee, who was actually only home four months of the year.
It was a quiet, peaceful life there. The Hudson river and the surrounding area possessed a wild windswept beauty that is now long gone. There was an "edge" to the city but strangely enough there was also a mellower side to it as well. I remember many empty lots and abandoned buildings, that were covered and or filled with vines, flowers and rubble. The streets around me were quieter then as only the locals were around and the possibilities in that atmosphere were greater and grander than they are today. It was more humble, intimate and personal as well but there were some disadvantages to deal with. We often had no electric in the hallways as the bill wasn't paid and I would have to leave a flashlight in my mailbox, so I could find my way to the top floor in the pitch dark at night. It was however a defining time for me in my life.
It was during that summer that I first met many of the characters from this "Ghost-Story" "novel". I met many of them again when I returned to the island, several years later to live. Only the shell of the diner is still standing, and the area is almost unrecognizable today. Only the shadows and the echoes remain.
The building that I loved and lived in was demolished along with many sweet memories in 2002. There were only seven apartments in the building and three were already empty the first summer that I lived there. There were only two other tenants besides myself when I returned seven years later. I was happy that my old neighbor Mrs Novac from Budapest was still living on the top floor across from me. She was growing a beautiful container garden on our roof, but I found it quite strange that "Mrs N" was growing six kinds of catnip... but that is for another story. Our other neighbor was a traveling musician by the name of Roy from Tennessee, who was actually only home four months of the year.
It was a quiet, peaceful life there. The Hudson river and the surrounding area possessed a wild windswept beauty that is now long gone. There was an "edge" to the city but strangely enough there was also a mellower side to it as well. I remember many empty lots and abandoned buildings, that were covered and or filled with vines, flowers and rubble. The streets around me were quieter then as only the locals were around and the possibilities in that atmosphere were greater and grander than they are today. It was more humble, intimate and personal as well but there were some disadvantages to deal with. We often had no electric in the hallways as the bill wasn't paid and I would have to leave a flashlight in my mailbox, so I could find my way to the top floor in the pitch dark at night. It was however a defining time for me in my life.
It was during that summer that I first met many of the characters from this "Ghost-Story" "novel". I met many of them again when I returned to the island, several years later to live. Only the shell of the diner is still standing, and the area is almost unrecognizable today. Only the shadows and the echoes remain.
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| Sad Update. October 2018. This is what has become of the former site-block of my beloved Lost Diner. Selfishly demolished along with the Carwash, Weinstock store and its quaint tenement building (another ghost story to come... a trilogy) and notorious "adult store-theater". Nothing remains. |
My past is showing. I used to eat at this Diner, when I was a bike messenger, with a pager, living in a squat close by off the river, in the mid 1980s. What a flashback. Very nice little story as well.
ReplyDeleteLove this. I recently went by this Diner. The whole block is gone! Youve immortilized it
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