Well, now is when I shall tell a funny story about leaks in the gorgeous apt. complex my first husband and I lived in before Whitney was born. Bert and I rented this smashing apt in an old set of buildings on the Near North in Chicago that was owned and rehabbed by the guy who was the art director for ABC-TV and a wealthy lawyer. There were two buildings with a big space in between where a building had burned down, now walkways and garden. Across the back Ray built a wall with terracotta heads that had water coming from their mouths into a pool that ran all across the back of the property. The old buildings were completely new inside, with high ceilings and VERY modern apts.
We hardly needed any furniture, as Ray (not his real name) had built in drawers all across one side of the bedroom, including a very large space for luggage, etc. to be stored, with sliding door closets next to them.. The bedroom had a balcony opening that looked over the living area below, and the windows went from the very bottom to the top, so that the curtain for the bedroom was on a circular track just above the overlook. I bought osnaberg and laid it out on top of newspapers all across the enormous floor of the bedroom, threw fabric paint in black, with flashes of red and yellow across it and made beautiful curtains of it. (Which I later sold to the guy who rented the apt after we left, at about five times what I had paid for the materials.) We also had terra cotta figures built into the rounded fireplace on the first floor, a perfect breakfront built into the dining area, and hand-carved balustrude. Too much. Oh, and it also had a huge grill across one side of the kitchen, with a large vent....like having an outdoor grill inside, a practically walk-in fridge and freezer...with more cupboards than I have had since. We bought a huge couch, three overstuffed chairs, a coffee table for downstairs, and made a very large bed with foam mattresses for upstairs, and one chair for the built-in dressing table. The bathroom had a little hidden nitch for the toilet, two huge counters with marble sinks, a tub and a shower.
Across from ours was a small apt on the first floor, with a very fancy, elaborate two story one on the second and third floors. A spectacular curved staircase that seemed to hang in the air went up to the bedrooms. That apartment also had windows that went from the bottom of the first floor, all the way up to the top of its second floor. It was, by far, the showiest one in the two buildings and our crazy neighbor never did get curtains as I recall. What did he care, he had been a chorus boy in New York and didn't care who saw him in any state.
The first floor studio was rented by a fairly young, blue collar couple, working their way up the social ladder, while upstairs was a young, gay Spaniard of noble heritage, who was impossible. His family had sent him over to get him out of the country, and he made a spectacle of himself as a chorus boy in New York. So he was sent to Chicago with enough money to pay a year's rent, daddy bought him the pale blue Lincoln Continental he wanted and sent him a monthly allowance. He of course, spent the year's rent right away, bought two spectacular dogs and fancy furniture and food, then spent half his time screaming on the phone to daddy or his sister that he needed more money, completely neglected the dogs.....and danced heavily to LOUD music with his new boyfriend.
The dogs took to peeing on the floor in ONE spot, and one day we heard Gloria (the girl downstairs) screaming, "Damn you, you rotten little $^%#@, turn down that ^%$&* music, stop the %#@$&*%$@ dancing AND that dog pee is coming through our ceiling -- do something NOW about it, or I'm coming up to kill both you and the dogs!!" The poor landlord had to go and insist that Jose (I think) get rid of the dogs and do the whole ceiling over.....which cost daddy a great deal of money....and daddy also had to pay for a hotel room for the kids downstairs while it was being fixed. After that, the Spaniard, Jose, had to go to live with his sister on some island somewhere, where she could keep an eye on him. He gave the Lincoln Continental to his boyfriend, and brought me two dozen porterhouse steaks that he had simply thrown into his freezer in a stack.... they were all stuck together .....that he had bought because I said they were nice to have for a BBQ.
I missed him, as he was actually fun and always came to parties with several bottles of THE BEST booze and lots of great food......but no one else seemed to miss him, sadly. I hope he is happily dancing (he was good) on that island of his sister's with a large inheritance from daddy......and not letting any dogs pee on second floors again. And, since he must now be very old, I hope he got some curtains for his bedroom!
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