Apartment

124 East 176th Street in the Bronx.

Our apartment building, considered a low rise with only six floors, had an elevator, fire escapes snaking up the exterior of the building, and a coal fed incnerator. Each floor had a chute that led down to the basement where the incinerator burned the garbage. We considered it a treat to be taken down to observe this city rite-- the burning of everone's trash.

There was always a radio on, often competing with another radio. On the weekends the aomas of meals competed with each other. My grandmother's pungent gefilte fish aroma permeated the second floor hallway. It took the better part of a day for the smell to disapate and even then I insisted hat it had seeped into every inch of our three room apartment and hung in for days.

Mrs. Pasquale, on the third floor, made her own noodles, and when she cooked her tomato sauce the smell made me ache for an Italian relative.

Carole's mother was always cleaning the blinds.

She said, " They collect the soot from the Jerome Avenue train."

I couldn't understand how that was possible since we lived three blocks from the elevated train tracks.

On my way home from school I loved looking up and seeing my grandmother's plant on the kitchen window ledge. The plant remained, even when only one leaf remained.