I paid a visit to 451 Broome Street early Sunday morning. It was still dark, cold, and tiny specks of ice were sporadically falling from the sky. The area was pretty deserted, which made it kinda of scary. The brazen rat who raced me along the sidewalk didn't make me feel anymore comfortable.
There were several blocks between the subway station and the building. I started off going in the wrong direction and wound up on Broadway. I recognized that strip, that area. When I realized I was going the wrong way, I turned around.
It was interesting to see the neighborhood. I noticed several nice boutiques, a Bloomingdales, the standard bodegas, a gas station, parking garages, a tobacco shop, and a bingo parlor, the stones used to pave the streets. I think I saw the Starbucks where Meryl and John met. It's rather large and seemed to be one of the few signs of activity at that time of the morning. I remembered staying at a hotel on Broome Street one night several years back when I was having roommate troubles. Very interesting neighborhood. Smaller and more villagey than the image of New York City as a place of highrises, bright lights, and 24/7 hustle and bustle. It struck me as cool that Heath and I were sometimes only a half hour away from each other.
When I got to the building, the only sign of the previous week's events were police barricades in the street. All of the memorials and tributes had been removed. I had to double check my directions to make sure I was in the right place. The building looks nice. There's a big door with a big window and a pretty purple, tie-died scarf with fringe hanging over the inside of the window. I looked up at each floor, and I wondered if the building had an elevator and roof access.
I didn't stay long. There didn't seem to be a point, and, as I've mentioned before, I didn't want to be thought of as a morbid gawker. I headed back, turned around for another look at the building after I'd crossed the street.
I can't say that I really felt anything. Maybe I was just tired, physically and emotionally. I felt more the times I walked past Michelle's place. Even though Heath hadn't lived there for several months, it seemed more like his home to me. I read somewhere that his Manhattan apartment didn't have much furniture and that his bed was a mattress on the floor. Very bohemian. I slept like that in my previous apartment for a couple of years.
I walked by Michelle's tonight on my way to do laundry. The memorials and tributes have been tidied up (I didn't do it this time.). Some, like the poster from the school next door, are gone. Don't know what happened to any of them at either place. A candle was still burning.
If anyone is interested, there was an interesting article about 421 Broome Street in the Sunday
Daily News,
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/01/27/2008-01-27_ledgers_building_no_stranger_to_drama-3.html.
