My Manhattan Pied-A-Terre

Window in the bathroom looking into a similar window at the next apartment

View of the ongoing construction of another apartment building outside of my window, that creates some annoying noise

A photo of myself using the help of the mirror in my tiny bedroom; I'm actually standing on the bed!

Some of my books on the uppermost shelf in the bedroom

A more sedate, darker view of my window, looking again into the construction across the street

The fluorescent round lamp in contrast against the iron white-washed ceiling

My portable, detachable reading lamp, with a framed picture of the Sto Nino given to me by a friend, plus a small multi-colored lamp best used with a lighted candle in it!

Detail of the floral-style metal attachments of one of the mirrors inside my tiny bedroom

"A pied a what?" I asked my friend when she tried to describe what I was trying to do by keeping a bed space (actually, a tiny, tiny bedroom somewhere in East Broadway, Chinatown in Manhattan, which I share with 5 other people who almost always not seen home because they're doing full time jobs or some are doing live-in assignments somewhere in the city). She then repeated, "pied-a-terre," a description I heard again from another friend in another occasion. It's in a walk-up building, on the fourth floor, where the bathroom is separate from the toilet, and where my kitchen/dining room is actually downstairs where restaurants and food places plus groceries, coffee shop stand galore for foodlovers like myself to explore. It's in a hundred-year old building that may soon go, depending on the mood of the real estate market forces. See how new buildings are being built all around the area, including one that's being finished right in front of my building.

Why keep one? I have a job somewhere in Staten Island that provides for board and lodging but I thought I'd like to keep a space in Manhattan. Some people I know can't keep their contempt, voiced out or otherwise, at me for having to keep a another space for seemingly frivolous reasons. I don't really explain much, except when I try to write about my thoughts and share my stories in my blogs. It's cool to have one, though it can be expensive and a drain. I'm using the space mainly to cool my heels off after hours of exploring the city, or when I'm too tipsy or tired to take the commute back to my Staten Island space (which in itself is gorgeous, as it's in a real house, where I hear birds singing every morning I open my eyes from my usual slumber). I like the privacy of this tiny bedroom, with its ceiling made of iron sheets with imprints that you typically see in old structures anywhere in the city. In addition, my roommates leave me in my private world. I don't really know up to when I'll keep this pied-a-terre. I'll then keep myself reminded that I have to make the best use of it for making myself more productive. Also, it feels good to learn from Burrows' & Wallace's Gotham that Edgar Allan Poe, of the "Raven" fame, once lived somewhere here briefly in East Broadway in 1845.