the going rate
housing market
Three years ago the building next door sold to an individual buyer for just shy of two million dollars. It was on the market a long time, a three-story brick townhouse that had been split into apartments at some point, but listed as a single-family home. It was built in 1899 and in rough shape; the new buyer had it gut renovated. The remodel took forever, and made working from home kind of miserable. The noise would start at seven in the morning even on weekends. People on our Zoom calls would ask what the heck was going on.
I guess the new people moved in; my s/o was out one morning waiting for a package. Our building has a sidewalk-level vestibule, no exterior steps, so she sat on the next-door stoop and waited for the delivery guy like we’d both done a million times. Within seconds, a woman emerged from the townhouse and told her it was private property. Then — realizing she’d initiated a confrontation in a maybe-not-fully-gentrified precinct — she backed off and introduced herself. I’m Finley, we just moved in. She had a little kid in tow with an even more ridiculous name.
We laughed about it for months, this Lululemon woman in the gut-renovated townhouse with her dumb name and dumb kid. Sign of the times, but here we were working from the apartment and going out for coffee every morning. Once, out running, I saw the husband emerge from the front door wearing a Reagan-Bush ‘84 t-shirt. I’d pack that away out of concern for my safety, if anything, but he’s unbothered.
On a Saturday in June we staggered out of bed and dressed for the block party. The neighborhood association had a street permit, DJ sets booked through the afternoon. When we rolled out of the house, a small group of friends — fortyish J.Crew couples — was gathered on the townhouse stoop, drinking from red Solo cups. Of course they didn’t actually go to the block party. As we passed, my s/o pointed out the woman who’d accosted her.
I should’ve known, I’d never encountered another person with that name, but I’d honestly forgotten her. Years earlier I had this job at a software company, I’d travel around training marketing teams on the tech and trying to sell them more of it. She worked at an agency and had a conspicuously senior title. She wasn’t particularly talented, she’d just gotten in early. Some of the customers were nasty or demanding, and I didn’t have any complaints about her. LinkedIn says she hasn’t worked in years, but they have full-time childcare anyway.
Now when I pass them on the sidewalk she’ll do a little double-take. She recognizes my face, but hasn’t placed me. I’m from the days when she’d take the J train into the office and eat Sweetgreen. She doesn’t think about them much, neither do I. They host dinner parties. The first floor blazes with overhead lighting, eggshell white walls with no art on them. I can see them but they don’t see me.