#40 Pot & Patchouli

We pull up in front of a ramshackle tenement on 9^th Street. The brass numbers above the entrance are askew and the crescent of the 5 is clipped off, but not as intriguing a detail to spend time figuring out how or why.

Certain sections on certain blocks there are patches or patch-worked architecture with spit, brick and cement holding a façade or stoop together.  This is one.

At the door I stare at the old chrome, tape stained panel searching for 4C. The numbers are faded and I always get the logic of the arrangement confused: horizontal or vertical? It never fails to piss me off.  4C pops out at me and I press the buzzer and immediately a click and I enter the vestibule where the echoing electronic beehive of torture alarm cuts off and I see that it is a walk up which is no surprise.

A walk up.

Having not lived in the East Village for over 15 years I am struck by how frozen in time and consistent the narrow stairs look from the pink and white, black grouted inch-square tiled floor: Mismatched and also patch-worked together from years of repairs. Left over tile from someone’s bathroom renovation, or something left on the sidewalk that will do.

The stairs are steep and narrow, which I know are identical to every other in the neighborhood. Creaky stairs covered with brown rubber lined linoleum unevenly nailed into place with rusty brown nails. Three centuries of layered paint cover the bannister and more of the mid 20^th century bathroom tile and stucco work adorn every wall. Easy jazz, dog chatter and the smell of pot and patchouli is here.  I cannot get over how none of this has changed a bit.  Like an in vivo time capsule.

I get to 4 and search for C.  At the end of each floor the doors frames hug each other at a 45degree angle, like an open book. One with a dusty dried flower wreath opens and a frail woman with pre-Raphaelite hair to her waist is standing there. I hand her the bag.