The Overlook Revisited – Part 4

Returning to live in the same apartment at the Overlook that was home to me back in the 1980s was a weird experience.

Climbing the stairs to my old room on the fourth floor, and turning the key to Room 412 made me wonder if the last thirty years of my life hadn’t been something that I only imagined.

Many things hadn’t changed. The architectural details of the building were still charming, and made you feel that you were living somewhere special.

Amazingly, my bathroom sink with a separate faucet for hot and cold water was still the same, thirty-plus years later. Soon I got used to mixing the water together in my hands again if I wanted it lukewarm.

Some things in the apartment had changed for the better, making it much more comfortable. It was carpeted now. Rooms had ceiling fans. As opposed to the 1980s, air conditioner window units were now being manufactured that were small enough to fit the narrow Overlook windows. One came with the apartment, and I added one of my own to keep thing cool. And there was a dishwasher now too.

Maybe the built-in ironing boards at the Overlook were
removed because they were too dangerous

Sadly, the Tom and Jerry-style ironing board hidden in the wall behind a little door was gone – plastered over.

But although the apartment hadn’t changed that much, I soon realized that I had. I was too used to owning a place to accept renting again. Plus, things that I might have found funny during my first time there as a twenty-five year old renter became difficult to “overlook" the second time around as a guy pushing sixty.

For instance, there was a reason that heat at the Overlook was free. That’s because even in the dead of winter with the heat off, it was more than 80 degrees in my apartment – even with the window cracked open!

Gas for cooking, however, was not free. And even though some months I only used the gas range once to fry an egg, the minimum gas company bill still applied. That one egg cost me about thirty bucks to cook.

One of my nightmarish memories of the Overlook in the 1980s were the centipedes that seemed to be everywhere. Was it better in 2017? Yes – a lot. There were still ’thousand-leggers’ but not as many. (A few times I wondered if they were the descendants of the ones that were there in 1985.)

And there were some plumbing issues too. A few times I came home from work to find there was no water at all. Other times, there was only cold water. I soon discovered that you could get used to ice-cold showers if you have to.

I do have to say that the people in charge of managing the Overlook during my second stint were terrific. The manager (who, by the way, was young and pretty, and quite a change from the usual retired caretakers of the past) did her best to respond to any concerns and was pleasant to talk to.

The other residents living at the Overlook made it interesting and fun as well. A crazy assortment: lonely seniors, a young couple with a newborn baby, a Goth girl, health care workers, a mailman, even a young woman with a pip-pip British accent.

Anyway, the Overlook was still a bargain in the 2000s, and one of the best kept secrets in the area when it came to apartments. Who knows? Maybe I'll end up there again at some point in the far-off future.

But I hope that sink in #412 gets updated before then.

****

Please note that since I moved out of the Overlook in 2018, there has been a change in ownership of the building, as well as a new property management team installed.