New York City Throwback
about that green velvet sofa, the Empire State Building, and the Model Who Shall Remain Unnamed
I recently stumbled upon a post by
, Some Postcards I Never Sent, which you might want to read if you have a box of unsent letters or a metaphorical box of not-done-things, which you probably do, because we all do. Chee’s post includes a photo of his stylish New York City apartment, including a green velvet sofa that brought to mind the green velvet sofa my husband and I had in our one-bedroom, fourth-floor walkup on the Upper West Side, between Amsterdam and Central Park West, in the early nineties.Our green velvet sofa was also set against the wall, with two windows to the left overlooking the street. I think often of that sofa, which was torn on the arm, which is how we got it on sale.
We sublet the apartment from a former model who used to sneak in when we weren’t there, pull my clothes out of the wardrobe, and throw them on the floor. The wardrobe was filled with her modeling outfits from the eighties, lots of sequins and shoulder pads. There was no room for our books because her shelves were filled with self-help books. There were glossy magazines in which she appeared in fashion spreads, with post-it notes pasted on the faces of younger, more famous models. The post-it notes said things like, “Be friends with her” and “find her agent.” We all live a transactional life in some ways, but hers seemed more transactional than most. She was always dating minor celebrities, the kind of men who were in the news for all the wrong reasons.
The closets were locked with padlocks. The model was vague about what she did for work now that the modeling career was over, where she was staying, why she was subletting the apartment but still apparently living in the city. I got the feeling she might return at any moment, and we would arrive to find our belongings on the fourth-floor landing.