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My friends have called my apartment building many things, well before it was my building. Last year, we\u2019d walk by it and they\u2019d call it scary, gross, old or sketchy. They scoffed at its solemn and stately structure, long since worn by the passing of time and tenants, and I\u2019d feel a pang of defensiveness for the place. My mother found the building to be rickety: somewhere she wasn\u2019t quite sure she wanted her kid to live. She eyed each room suspiciously as we carried my furniture and boxes inside, searching for something wrong, something that would confirm its inability to host her precious daughter. It\u2019s difficult for me to grasp the distrust they have for my building\u2019s old bones; I always thought it was beautiful.<\/p>\n
The four-story structure is short and square, made entirely of red brick and gray concrete. Above and below the windows, the dark brick is arranged to form decorative rectangles with happy pointed corners, and the edifice is adorned with carved stone spirals and ornamentation darkened from decades of dirt and exhaust.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inside, the floors are made of real hardwood, with a strip of lighter wood going down the center of the walkways\u00a0\u2014 the memory of a floor runner that is no longer there. The air in the halls always smells like old cigarettes. The doors lock with real keys and I struggle with the entrance to the lobby each time I use it; I jiggle and twist my old key while trying to turn the handle, the scuffed glass of the door rattling in its wooden frame during my daily dance with the knob. There is no elevator, and the wood stairs and railings are deeply penetrated with grime that couldn\u2019t be sanded out when they were refinished last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I get to my apartment, I struggle again with my own heavy wooden door. The entryway usually smells like cinnamon, unless the neighbors across the alley are cooking something that drifts from their kitchen to mine, or the wind brings the smell of Indian spices from the restaurant next door. Our windows are always open to the sounds of the street, the rain and the person above us who likes to sing. The wooden floors creak loudly under my feet as sunlight pours in, illuminating the clumpy cream-colored paint on the dusty windowsills and walls, which reflect the light and make the entire room feel golden. These warm walls have only been mine for three weeks, but they feel like home. It feels like I\u2019m supposed to be here; it feels like a place made for people, made for me.<\/p>\n