Notes on the link above:
You may have been trying to open a dead link previously, so I edited this posting now, which I hope will be helpful in your reading experience. The original posting is found in my blogger.com account, which I still keep for practical purposes. The posting’s about my tiny space that I kept in Chinatown along East Broadway that’s a few steps away from the East Broadway stop of the ‘F’ train before it crosses to Brooklyn. It’s in a tenement of an existence that you must have read or heard about in old movies or pictures depicting the East Side of Manhattan as ridden with squatters.
Honestly, I’m not bothered at all with the idea of having lived in such environmental conditions – I’ve seen worst conditions in many more places (in terms of material wealth and/or the lack of spiritual wealth in posh-looking surroundings) and I don’t take it against anyone who will think otherwise.
My pied-a-terre‘s a private one where I had my own tiny room in a converted space made to accommodate at least 5 people, with at least 2 of them working full time stay-in-jobs in other parts of the city. Most days, I’d be left by myself with another boarder who would be doing part-time service oriented jobs. She was from Malaysia and who’s ethnically Chinese. It’s a strange experience, so to speak, sharing all these common-sounding immigrant experiences with other Asians who were helpful to and curious about me, too. I got the space mainly on the strength of recommendation of another friend who’s Malaysian himself. The space’s very convenient to public transportation and very close to hip places in the East Village, West Village, Alphabet City, Soho, and practically downtown Manhattan. Food’s abundant and very affordable but my living quarters were chaotic yet fun looking. You gotta have to be possessed with more than enough confidence to endure living in these types of quarters. But then again, you will soon realize there are always others who live in worst conditions than what you have.
Anything you may want me to share and discuss here about this place? Give some feedback and I may just go about sharing more. I’ve read some recent articles on how people go about their living quarters in this side of Chinatown in Manhattan from the New York Times – and I could only just reminisce. I’m always surprised as to how certain writers (or journalists) tend to focus and highlight on what’s obvious – I think most of them don’t dig that deep enough to know more about the many facets of truths on how it is to make a meaningful living here in Manhattan. In any case, ‘Thanks a lot!’
