One of the most fascinating (or sometimes, brutally annoying) parts of my apartment is that it's housed in a tenement building that was built in the early 1900s. Sometimes the water doesn't turn on. Sometimes water spews out of radiator valves. Sometimes - well, once every 40 years - someone moves in with 40 cats and lets them piss all over the downstairs, which provides a welcoming salute to all who enter. It has its charm.
The photo above is from the corner of S3rd Street and Driggs Avenue in 1935. There's the church on the corner, which I now consider more of a gathering spot for the middle school corner boys. One morning I was sipping coffee and saw a group of 12 year olds beating up a girl on the hood of a car. Another group broke it up and chased them down the street. Out of sight and out of mind.
The bigger building is where I live. My apartment is in the back and at the very top, so I have a view of the skyline (soon to be completely obstructed by condominiums and giant Apple stores) and the intersection where this photograph was taken. Most people in Brooklyn think things change far too rapidly and I often remind them of the ghosts that haunt nearly every building or locale that hasn't been torn down. This image refutes both of these mindsets in a way. It implies that even though we think things are changing, they haven't really changed too much at all. My home hasn't aged a day in 75 years. It isn't a ghost. It just continues to stand like always.
