Back in 1988 mid 89 I'd changed apartments five times since arriving in NY straight out of college, not landing any good deal for a share or a living space. In September of 89 i got a job as a dessert waiter at a bakery café in Park Slope called Cousin John’s Bakery, at the time owned by John [the baker-chef] and his cousin Louis [businessman extraordinaire!].
The manager at the restaurant was a woman from Germany named Andrea. She had the lease on the studio apartment above the restaurant. A month after starting work, she let me know she was giving up the apartment and asked if I wanted to take it over. At the time, the rent was $340 a month for the sublet. When I took the lease over, it went up to $406 around 1990. I lived in that apartment for the next 31 years, with a mix of boyfriends and cats along on the journey.
Andrea left a wool horse blanket in the apartment that I kept since, as a reminder of the incredible good fortune she had brought to me. Andrea passed away in the middle of the ’ 90s of cancer, but I have kept her in my heart; she changed my life forever. By 2021 the rent had grown to only $828 a month.
I never knew what to do with the blanket; it was a radiator footer for a decade, then when the pandemic came and I finally left that apartment and bought a home down south, the blanket came along. I recently finally made it into a little cat bed so my kitty Nee Nee can now appreciate the warmth of Andrea’s blanket too.
