Upon hearing the very sad news of Nora Ephron's passing last week, I've found myself pouring over articles and interviews lately. What a gift she had. And how she will be missed.
my favorite Nora Ephron film, You've Got Mail (photo credit)
I am currently obsessing over this article in The New Yorker written by Nora in 2006 about her love affair with her rent-controlled 5 bedroom home at the Apthorp, a classic Upper West Side apartment building that I am forever drooling over. I love this article. I love her descriptions and her wit and her sentiments on the neighborhood and the feelings of utter devotion and love conveyed for her apartment (plus it's always fun to get an inside peek into incredible NYC real estate). I like to imagine her sitting in one of her 8 (yes, eight!) rooms pecking out the first draft of You've Got Mail, her Upper West Side inspiration right under nose outside an open window. She recounts the unfortunate circumstances (the end of rent stabilization and therefore a HUGE increase) that eventually forced her out of her love-at-first-sight home.
The Apthorp (photo credit)
I could definitely relate to her sentiments. It is true that a place (specifically -- in her case and mine -- a really great New York apartment) has the ability to crawl into your heart, right alongside the relationships you hold near and dear. The nook-y fifth floor walk-up near Lincoln Center that Dan and I shared our first year of marriage is that place for me. I fell head over heels in love with that apartment immediately, with it's high ceilings, loft space and working fireplace. It felt like home the moment we walked in.
our beloved old apartment building on Columbus
Perhaps it was my fondness for the space that made that year so lovely...or maybe it was the happy/gooey first-year-of-marriage bliss that sweetened the space. Either way, I feel a whole lotta love when I think of those times and that apartment, and find myself still sometimes tearing up a bit as I walk past our old building. And while we are now in a place that is much better suited for our family of three, a bit farther north in the same neighborhood, it's not quite the same...I'm just not as charmed by it and it didn't knock me off my feet the first time I saw it (though it was so far superior to every other place we'd seen during our arduous search that the words 'we'll take it!' tumbled out of our mouths a mere 5 minutes into the tour, if for no other reason than to "beat" the other couple who had just walked in...it was slim pickings in NYC last summer!). The happy memories we are creating with Miles in our current apartment more than make up for it's lack of high ceilings and fireplace, and I really have no complaints. But as Nora puts it at the end of the article (regarding the perfectly lovely Upper East Side apartment she eventually moved into): "It's not love. It's just where I live."
And now I am off to go watch "You've Got Mail" for the millionth time and to fall in love with the Upper West Side and Nora all over again.
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