Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Unexpected in Brooklyn!

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 :)




A Brooklyn Writer's American Dream
Can you believe this is in Brooklyn? 
Note the scaffolding on the right. Constant dollars...

A Brooklyn Writer's American Dream
The entrance. It looks like it belongs in the Deep South.


A Brooklyn Writer's American Dream
Same house, another view, another upstairs balcony.

A Brooklyn Writer's American Dream
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!

A Brooklyn Writer's American Dream
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!


A Brooklyn Writer's American Dream
Another fabulous house. That's my writing room, under the eaves...

A Brooklyn Writer's American Dream
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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