The Ghost
Pavilion
Beware of the ghost pavilion! It exists on my side of the building on the 7th
floor. For six months, there have been only
three occupied apartments (out of ten) on the north side of my floor. There are 144 apartments in my rent-stabilized
building which occupies half of a square block in the 90’s on West End Avenue.
Two of the apartments were held by
friends of mine who died several years ago.
The apartment next to me was occupied by a friend who lived there for
almost fifty years and died six months ago.
No one has cleaned out his
apartment yet.
Three apartments down the hall are
empty. Two of them used to be a one
bedroom and studio that were remodeled as a three bedroom apartment to
accommodate two families with four children, who lived there for about twenty
years altogether. When the last family
moved out they broke up the three bedroom apartment into two apartments
again. Both apartments are still empty.
Another
studio apartment at the end of the hall is still rented by a musician who
doesn’t live in New York but uses it a few times a years when he comes in to
play as a soloist for some concerts here.
Otherwise it’s mostly empty.
One other one bedroom belongs to a
demented man who can’t be trusted to live by himself so he mostly stays in his
companion’s apartment on the floor below.
He roams around like a ghost looking for a place to alight.
I’ve actually seen some people,
sometimes, in the other two apartments so I know they are rented. But one of the tenants only appears every now
and then to clean out the apartment and provide food for the people who sublet
sometimes for a short period of time.
The other tenant I’ve seen a couple of times, but she seems to travel a
lot and also sublets her apartment when she’s not around.
If you ask the management if there
are any empty apartments on my floor (some people in the building who want
bigger apartments have asked,) they reply that there are NO apartments
available. Just a ghost pavilion! would be my reply.
