...The People That You Meet Each Day

I just saw this great Rosecrans Baldwin/Danny Gregory piece in The Morning News about Baldwin's Brooklyn neighbors.

It's a true cliche about New York that despite its size, it's quite insular, particularly within neighborhoods. You end up seeing a lot of the same people over and over again -- sometimes acknowledging each other's presence, sometimes not.

If I had any artistic talent, these are the neighbors I'd draw:

1. The aging punk-rocker in a similarly-aging Ramones t-shirt, fine shoulder-length curly yellow hair, and a limp, from my old neighborhood in Chelsea. I always saw him (from my balcony) crossing 23rd Street on 7th Ave. Wonder where he was going?

2. The wiry-gray-haired woman in her mid-fifties who lived in our Chelsea building; I think her name was Dottie (although I may have imagined that because she looked like a Dottie). When I'd see her in the building, she would speak to me briefly in an abrupt yet strangely monotone manner, but she never acknowledged me when I passed her on the street. One day when I met her coming out of the elevator, she blurted out, "I'm dying of cancer," as if she'd just found out but it hadn't fully sunk in yet. I'm not sure she had anyone else to tell. I didn't have a clue what to say, so I just said, "I'm so sorry" as she walked toward her apartment.

3. Our doormen, also in Chelsea, who knew us predominately as "Oh, yeah -- you're the Red Sox fans."

4. Our current upstairs neighbors, frat-boy types whom I've never seen but whom I associate mostly with yelling, since they a) often come into the building talking in raised, cruel voices; and b) have sporting event get-togethers where an entire throng of frattish boys scream at once.

5. Our 60+ year-old female super Lindy, who goes drinking and playing pool several times a week but who always seems ashamed when we pass her outside the bar. Since we live on the first floor, we often hear her muttering to herself about the "idiot tenants" when she's gathering up the trash.

For other neighborhood stats nerds like me, the New York Department of City Planning has extremely detailed neighborhood demographic profiles. Or for an altogether different kind of stats, check out the oldie-but-goodie Bohemian Index, also on The Morning News.

Finally, here's a site dedicated to our non-human New York neighbors.