Despite profound differences among several generations of family members, they are all connected by a shared location: 85 White Street. The address is fictionalized, but all the other details are true to my family’s experience.
Imagine a time when one of the busiest streets in Manhattan was deserted enough for kids to roller-skate in the middle of the road on the weekends. Believe it or not, this was the reality for my mom when she was growing up, before Canal Street became infamous for its ability to attract crowds of tourists with counterfeit bags and great restaurants. It’s even harder to picture Canal Street as an actual canal in the early 1800s, surrounded by towering bluffs, which also have streets named after them now. In 1850, my great-grandfather’s grandfather lived on White Street, just a few blocks south of Canal, peddling goods such as shoe polish, fabric, and kitchenware before leaving for the Gold Rush. Just down the street from where he’d lived, a new cigar warehouse was built in 1868. To this day, my family still lives there.
I’ve always lived at 85 White Street. Although it’s been converted from a warehouse to a residential building, the building’s five floors still seem unfinished and not really meant for human life. I learned to crawl up the four flights of stairs to my apartment before I even knew how to walk. When the ten-foot-tall crimson doors at street level are opened, you’re greeted by a steep mountain of seventy-eight steps that stretch all the way to the back of the building. Unlike the other buildings in the neighborhood, it has unprofessionally installed plumbing, no elevator, and a threat of giving you a splinter from the floorboards.
My grandparents purchased the top two floors of 85 White in 1969 for a relatively cheap price, and the building has increased in value in more than just monetary ways. My mother was nine years old when she first moved in, and we’ve shared some of the same childhood experiences of falling down the treacherous stairs and picking splinters out of the soles of our feet. Unfortunately, though, I don’t think Canal Street will ever again be empty enough for me to try roller-skating there like she did. Her father was a painter, so choosing a house with lots of space to work on his vast canvases came first, and comfort came second. The loft still smells like oil paint and sawdust, because just like my mom’s dad, my dad is a painter. My dad’s abstract paintings often compete with the large sizes of my grandfather’s figurative paintings, and these enormous works can be found hanging side by side under twenty-six-foot-high skylights.
The house has become a relic of my family’s history. For three generations it has remained the home and workplace for many of my family members, and for me and my sister, it’s the only home we’ve ever known. Not everyone has the experience of having lived in only one house, and it’s even rarer that I’m able to grow up in the same house where my mother did. People often move to New York City to escape their hometowns and live in pristine apartments that offer a fresh start. There have been times when I wished our house had less clutter and looked more normal, but that was before I realized that a lot of our knickknacks have important meanings. We don’t necessarily need to hold on to my grandfather’s cassette collection since nobody owns a cassette player anymore, but it’s always a nice reminder of the times he’d blast loud music while painting. Some days he’d play Mozart, other days he’d play the Sex Pistols. Now that we have the Internet, we don’t really need my grandma’s old cookbooks, but getting rid of them isn’t worth the price of losing her best recipes.
I’m lucky that I live in a home saturated with reminders of people I love. My maternal grandparents passed away when I was young so I didn’t get to spend that much time with them, but their presence lives on in the objects and furniture that I see every day. Growing up in this house has given me valuable intergenerational experiences, and I have gained an appreciation for my family and our value for authenticity over perfection. Although it isn’t as polished as a lot of other apartments, I bet those apartments wouldn’t be able to hold two generations’ worth of paintings and endless family memories. Our house may look peculiar and incomplete, but it tells a story that is truly priceless.