Chester's Profile

PS: Who are your movers?

I live on Roosevelt Island - not a kid any more - "Soviet era" architecture? Teh 70s era buildings were designed by Philip Johnson!!! and the apts are more spacious than average manhattan apts. many languages spoken, the relief of some green spaces and trees, the river, its breeze, a kindly community - call me boring but it's fine with me. I was invited out here several years ago for homemade Indian dinner (how can you top that invitation?) - i stood on the terrace of the wraparound apt. and listened to the hum of Manhattan (of which RI is legally a part) and recognized that I was apart from the hum, giving my nervous system a break. True, no takeout or restaurants and once in awhile we do get marooned but i like having a nice kitchen to cook in and floor to ceiling windows and nice floors. My nice apt in midtown east was good for all those takeout things but now i am more conscious of what i eat because i cook it! The one thing i miss about life outside the NYC area are simple dinner parties which were always routine in my life elsewhere and so much warmer than trendy nightspots. RI might well be for the boring raising children or recuperating from so much excitement. recently i had an injury and came to appreciate my neighbors even more - i couldn't walk so they shopped for me and took my garbage out! Hip is overrated.

my mother's persian rug dealer had a big cement floor just for hosing his expensive wares for his loyal customers. She was big on Royal Kirmans and they do last for generations - her mother's persian rugs are still going strong. - I think grandma would be 117 if she were still alive.

Is it me or do too many of these comments seem kinda anal? Or is the word pretentious? This is a nice, clean, serene space and isn't that what we are going for? So what if there's a torchiere you don't like! And hasn't anyone ever been to a big manhattan party in a little manhattan apt, like Holly Golightly? Hers wan't any bigger but she had lots of people over!

I have nice, big windows and wear a sleep mask - easy to get used to though I went through many different airline ones till I bought a nice, cushiony silk one. I also have venetian blinds and curtains and started thinking the maybe the felt on tracks idea discussed the other day would give me even more darkness. Maybe the felt could become a canvas of sorts for decorative interest - or stay plain. Lack of darkness for sleep really can contribute to a long-term bearing on one's health as the lost sleep really added up to adrenal fatigue for me which I still have to respect. There's nothing like a problem to make good ideas come forth, and i look forward to reading about them!

One thing that i try to do (with varying degrees of success) is compost and deliver bags of same to the people at the greenmarket who collect it - and buy compost back from tehm to feed my plants. That way I remain connected to that part of at least one natural cycle. I do wish we could mandate that all tops of all bldgs be required to provide whatever green they can as part of the city's "lungs" and to control runoff when it rains like it did last week. I mean how bad could it be to have a garden to walk in atop your bldg?

that looks great - now does anyone have any ideas about unsightly air conditioners projecting out from the middle of a wall? i just think screen with lighting behind it or something. thanks

I went home and wrote a screenplay full of music and movement after I saw that movie (restored) at the film forum so many years ago. i listen to the soundtrack on my ipod. The talented, creative Jacques Demy wanted to make an American musical! Contrast that one with The Lives of Others - amazing, muted, almost colorless movie. (the filmmaker von Donnersmarck did his homework and learned that blue and red dyes were unavailable behind the iron curtain.)

I grew up in a big house with a kitchen my entire former 500 sf manhattan apt would fit into, with room to spare. In my late teens, I was an au pair in a chalet in the French alps which had a galley kitchen (summers, they sailed, also had a great house built on a Roman foundation at the cote d'azur) I learned in the chalet's kitchen, which is virtually the kitchen I have now (even the pass-through is in the same place) that I think and cook more calmly and efficiently in a smaller space. The huge kitchen of my childhood had so much counter space that you just moved from one mess to the next, running from mess to mess, creating a super confusing mess in the process) - so to me this stainles work station looks silly, rigid and in the way. It reminds me of teh fixin's bar at thruway stops. I think it was Maxwell who said the important triangle between fridge, stove and sink defines a good kitchen and to that i say amen! I also have stuff hanging off the walls that would probably make a lot of people's skin crawl, and it has cheap looking cupboards and fake butcher-block counters but i love cooking there. It feels like an artist's workshop.

brilliant! brilliant! love esp the bathroom with glass wall and sheer shower curtain! brilliant!