My Former Neighbor

A new book came out this week about the Barbizon Hotel. Old friends emailed me to let me know and a former writing teacher sent me the excerpt from the New Yorker, having remembered that I had written about the hotel in her class.

From the time I was born until after I graduated from college and this was my daily view. The Barbizon at 140 E. 63rd St. was directly across the street from our Brownstone at 145. My room was on the third floor. It had a large bay window that gave me a view up and down 63rd to Lexington and Third Avenues and across the street to the Barbizon. Where the windows lit up like scenes from my Viewmaster.

I don’t actually remember knowing that it was a hotel. It was just The Barbizon to me. Most of my friends lived in apartment buildings and had a doorman. Oh, how I wanted one of those. Luckily for me , Charlie at The Barbizon adopted me. When he saw me throwing water balloons out of my window with a friend one afternoon he crossed the street and rang the doorbell to let the grownups know what I was up to. When I found myself out without my wallet and it was getting dark I would give my taxi driver the Barbizon address. Seeing me in the backseat Charlie would reach into his pocket and pay the driver. I would run across the street to get my money to pay him back. My safety instructions were to go see Charlie if I should ever arrive home from school and no one answered the door.

I swam in the Barbizon’s basement pool after school. I had won some swimming championships at summer camp and my stepmother thought I might have real potential as a competitive swimmer, so she arranged for me to use the pool once a week. I remember being shocked the first time I went into the locker room in my school uniform and they were naked women everywhere. None of the modesty of my high school locker room was on display. I kept my eyes down and changed under my towel.

Over the years I have read many books and articles about my old neighbor. Some of them are below.

The New Yorker – Rooms of their own

Vanity Fair – Sorority on 63rd Street

Literary Hub

Town and Country

We left the neighborhood in the early 80s when Subway construction underneath 63rd St. filled our house with displaced rodents and coincidentally at the same time that the Barbizon went coed. There goes the neighborhood.

Thank you, Charlie, for adopting me.

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