A Brooklyn Writer's American Dream: To Float Through A Big Brooklyn Mansion
By Norma Hopcraft
My eyes pop wide open when I see the block after block of big old mansions, not far from me in Brooklyn. It's the last thing anyone would expect in Brooklyn.
I dream of owning one, floating through room after room on gleaming parquet floors. I step out on an upstairs balcony, off my bedroom, wearing a flowing peignoir, to check the weather before I get dressed in the morning. I have the coolest writing room. Utter creativity in beautifully designed, well-proportioned spaces.
Then I return to reality and walk back to my studio apartment. It has parquet floors, not freshly varnished before I moved in, alas, but I do the floor with Murphy's and hope to make them gleam eventually.
I face a courtyard of bricks and windows, not trees and grass.
I have no way to test the weather other than to wave my hand out a window.
But I don't have to maintain one of these palaces either. Content with what I have (most of the time :)
Can you believe this is in Brooklyn?
Note the scaffolding on the right. Constant dollars...
The entrance. It looks like it belongs in the Deep South.
Same house, another view, another upstairs balcony.
The chimney, right, probably needs to be repointed. Notice the beams holding up the corner on the left. Dollars! But what a beautiful room behind those curved windows!
The Flatbush-Ditmas Park neighborhood is replete with houses like this. Surprised? Not your mental picture of Brooklyn? Not mine either, but it's real!
Another fabulous house. That's my writing room, under the eaves...
Another fabulous house, with a great tree in the yard. In my yard I have a fire escape, moss on the broken concrete, and a collection of garbage.
How about you? Would you like to float like a prince or princess through houses like these? Comment below!
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