9.7.2010 | This old house
The building was built in 1927, and many of the original fixtures remain despite the fact that its apartments have always been rented. The top floors fared better, with renters capable of paying higher rents, and it's those apartments that retain the leaded glass in the french doors, original light and plumbing fixtures, old amenities such as the original icebox or in-wall ironing board, and vestigial technologies like electric kitchen fans encased inside the outside wall or the plankboard mount of a bakelite phone.
An old furnace the size and shape of a caboose, and the envy of boiler inspectors throughout the land, sucks natural gas from a thin and bent tube to keep the thermal emissions wafting from the coils and out through the single-paned windows, also original, and which in their senescence are cracked, holey, and loose from their sashes.
The floors are even, but the walls are not. Over the years, through overflowing tubs, pipe breaks, and squalls that blasted through weakened sashes, moisture—at times in full cascade—has permeated the gypsum, taking up residence and causing it to warp and bubble.
The old faucets leak, especially the hot, and the washers are of no replicable size, so they either have to be reseated until they disintegrate or, and eventually, the entire faucet must be replaced. Indeed, most faucets have been replaced and now all the external plumbing is mis-sized and mismatched.In my apartment, the kitchen sink is original, too. The old ceramic pocked and gouged and the thick grout fissured and falling away in chunks. The wooden frame is soft from being permanently damp, and in the time that I've lived here, the entire sink has sunk a millimeter or two, leaving an unwanted overflow for splashes between the tile counter and the gap in the grout.
The old pipes run slow and the water at first runs red. The water-saving toilet rocks on the old floor bolts and a single elecrical ciruit runs the perimeter of the whole apartment, fueling appliances and computers alike. It's hot in the summer and barely warm in winter, and I am in a perpetual war with moths.
But the plaster is thick and hand-trowled, and the old floors still slide smooth. The rooms smell of old wood and the big windows let in the light and mostly keep out the storms. It's more than 80 years old and everything still works. I love it to pieces.