Urban living

Living in New York reminds me of every Law and Order episode I've ever seen plus that scene in the movie Beaches where Bette Midler comes home after work and walks over a bum to get to her front door and then bangs on the steam radiator in her tiny apartment.

There are no bums sleeping on our stoop and we thankfully haven't seen any murders, but we do have a steam radiator and our apartment is not so big and we are inundated with the sights and sounds that we formerly knew only from TV.

Out our living room windows we can see the gray brick of another apartment building that sits maybe 10 feet from us. There is a narrow concrete walkway dividing our buildings which serves as storage for old furniture and a place for the occasional neighbor to use a garden hose.

At night I can look out the kitchen window and see right into our neighbor's apartment through their curtains. There is a light in the little walkway - it is a light bulb enclosed in a simple wire cage, and it eerily illuminates our apartment after dark.

Our bedroom window overlooks the fire escape and the alley behind our building where the trash cans are kept. There is a brownstone on the other side of the alley from us. We only have windows on these two sides, so it is not very bright in our apartment since the sun is challenged to creep between the two- and four-story buildings.

There are a lot of city sounds you might expect. The occasional car horn or engine, neighbors walking above us and next to us, the door buzzer sounding as people come in and out the building door which is adjacent to our first floor apartment.

The occasional dog barking, Spanish rap, furniture being moved next door. Early in the morning we hear people dropping their trash or moving the trash cans just below our bedroom window. We live right behind a commercial street, and as I type this I can hear what sounds like dishes being stacked in a dishwasher in a restaurant kitchen.

Although the apartment is large by some standards (in a city where people pay to sleep on couches), it is lacking some amenities, like closets. The bedroom we're sleeping in is barely big enough to fit a queen-size mattress and a rolling clothes rack that holds our clothes.

The kitchen has about two feet of counter space adjacent to the sink (mostly taken up by the dish-drying rack) and one small row of cabinets. The current tenants hung shelves to hold their spices and kitchen staples.

There is no air conditioning in the living room and only window units in the two bedrooms. We haven't really needed it - we only run the units at night - because the weather hasn't been much above the mid-80s. But it does get a bit stuffy in here during the day. There is no room for a kitchen table so we eat on the couch.

This is the trade off for living in the epicenter of the universe. Walk out the door and you have access to the best art, shopping, eating, parks, entertainment, night life and museums in the world. Stay inside and your feeling, well, a little trapped.

Or, no, cozy. That's what I meant to say. It's very cozy.