SOLSC 31: Moving, Part 2

            I've lived in my current apartment for more than 46 years, and I sincerely hope to stay here for the rest of my life. But in the 10 years between leaving home and settling in on Riverside Drive, in New York City, I lived at

• Antioch College, in Yellow Springs, Ohio (Sept. 1960-March 1961)

• a shared apartment on West 87th Street, between Columbus & Central Park West, in Manhattan (April-June 1961) (Antioch College had a co-op work-study curriculum, in which we studied on campus for half the year and worked at jobs anywhere in the U.S. the other half)

• back to Yellow Springs (July-Sept. 1961)

• a very brief stay in Los Angeles (a couple of weeks; too long a story for this slice)

• so a few months at home in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania (Oct.-Dec.1961)

• back to Yellow Springs (Jan.-March 1962)

• living at NIH (it was a co-op job; I wasn't a patient) (April-June. 1962)

• Irving Place, N.W., in Washington, D.C. (July-Aug. 1962) (I used to remember this address)

• 1612 19th Street, N.W. (Sept.1962-Aug.1963) (here's when I dropped out of Antioch the first time)

• 1835 19th Street, N.W. (a couple of weeks)

• 1833 19th Street, N.W. (Sept. 1963-March 1964)

• back to Yellow Springs (April-Sept. 1964) (here's when I went back to college)

• 70 West 82nd Street (Oct.1965-Dec. 1965) (here's when I got married, and dropped out of Antioch the second time)

• 134 West 82nd Street (Jan.1966-Sept. 1967) (here's when I started back to college, at City College, at night...)

• 101 West 85th Street (Sept.1967-Nov. 1970) (and here’s when I went to City College full-time; rent here was almost half what it was at the previous place)

            After I graduated from City College and got a real job, I started agitating for a real apartment. The kitchen on 85th Street had no counter space, and its sink was half the size of a normal one and just attached to a pipe under the window, with a piece of wood nailed to the wall for the drainboard.

            When we found the apartment on Riverside Drive, it seemed huge. Two good-sized bedrooms. A kitchen with counters and still big enough for a dining table.

           And a childhood dream come true. When we lived in West Haven, we would drive into New York a few times a year to visit my grandparents in Brooklyn. Riding down the West Side Highway, I saw these impressive apartment buildings towering above the hillsides of Riverside Park and thought, I want to live there some day. This apartment was in one of those buildings. It missed the river view, but otherwise... I feel happy every time I leave my building: the park, when I look left, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine when I look right. No other street in New York has this view.