Faded glory. That’s how I’d describe Mama’s apartment. At least, that’s what I’d say when I was feeling generous. When I wasn’t, I’d say it was a dilapidated piece of shit. But Mama loved it. Loved her seven big rooms, all sprouting from that tunnel of a hallway like branches from a tree. High ceilings, hardwood floors, and a maid’s quarters. Not really a living room, but a parlor and a dining room, with nearly floor-to-ceiling windows. Sounds grand, don’t it?
Built in 1910, that place was meant for the wealthy. But that was then and this was now and it was old—past old. It exuded sadness and disappointment. It stunk of mildew and dust, of ancient asbestos and long-dead vermin. The high ceilings leaked streams of filthy water, the tall walls were buckled, and the floor was treacherous with slivers.
Mama wasn’t blind to all the problems. She simply didn’t care. The place had been her home for nearly forty years. She had grown up during the Depression, dirt poor and hungry, in a rambling broken-down farmhouse. Determined to get ahead, she left Virginia when she was fifteen and grabbed a Greyhound bus for New York. That was in 1932, when the whole country was still struggling and chances for a colored girl with a ninth-grade education were next to nil. She had gone to work in Long Island, as a maid in the homes of moneyed white folk. Not often, but sometimes, she would talk about their grand homes. And sometimes I’d wonder: did this place of faded grandeur remind her of the homes she’d worked in? Maybe in her eyes, the dull floors still shone and the sagging walls were still ramrod straight.
Mama was ninety years old. She had lived in Harlem for some seventy-odd years, and she was still proud to be there, in the legendary mecca of black folk. Nowadays, a lot of black Harlemites were heading back down South, where life was slower and money went further. But you couldn’t tell Mama that. She still believed that Harlem was the only place to be.
She was especially proud to be in Hamilton Heights. It was a historic landmarked district, with rows of stately townhouses and stone terraces. It was home to an ethnically diverse community of actors, artists, architects, professors, and other intellectual bohemians. Certainly, parts of it were lovely.
“This is one of the nicest neighborhoods in all New York City,” Mama would say.
Then I’d say, “But I’m not complaining about the neighborhood. It’s this building.”
And that, of course, was a bald-faced lie. ’Cause I was most definitely complaining about both.
The gentrification that had hit Central and East Harlem had pretty much left West Harlem alone. At least our little part of it. That stretch along 135th and 145th Streets, between Broadway and Amsterdam? It was sad. Cheap landlords, run-down tenements. There were a couple of good restaurants along Broadway, but they were probably going to close soon. The atmosphere of an open-air drug market had certainly calmed down, but sometimes it felt like the dealing had just gone underground.
Then, there was the other Hamilton Heights. It was gorgeous. Convent Avenue, Hamilton Terrace, Sugar Hill: they were stunning—but they had always been stunning. Until fairly recently, they’d been among Harlem’s best-kept secrets. Even with as well-known a place as City College being on Convent Avenue, Hamilton Terrace, for example, escaped general notice. It was a forgotten enclave. A city apart. Even the air over there was different.
Over there. That’s how I thought of it. That was over there. And this was over here, where the people were holding on by the skin of their teeth.
“Well, if you don’t like it, leave,” Mama would say.
And I would sigh. Because we both knew I couldn’t. Not without a decent job and not without her. My dream was to earn enough to get us both out of there, but she didn’t want to go.
“This is my home,” she’d say. “When I die, it’ll be yours, and you can do with it whatever you damn well please. But for now, it’s mine, and the only way I’m leaving is when I leave this world.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“Why not? It’s gotta happen sometime,” she’d say, and then add, with a rueful smile, “It’s got to.”