Chekhov's Mistress
Letter from Brooklyn: The Stoop
Tis the season for stoop sales here in Brownstone Brooklyn, where we the wealthy poor congregate to sell our unwanteds to one another. My stoop has been particularly hot because I’m selling off my CD collection, which has brought me roughly $350 each sale (two sales so far and there’s more to go). It’s all in the marketing: $2 per CD, but 10 for $15 – everybody buys 10.
Of course I had some books out there, but they don’t attract much interest, even here in our ultra-literary enclave. The guy who bought The Sheltering Sky from me last year – after quite a bit of praise from me – was back again and admitted that he hadn’t yet read it. My heart goes out to him. I understand.
I wouldn’t do the stoop sale thing except for the cash, but I do enjoy the neighborly aspect of sitting on your stoop in nice weather and chatting all day with people you see but rarely speak to. I think that’s why they’re so popular here. I remember being dragged as a kid to “yard sales” by my grandmother, who would drive (this was in suburban Kentucky) around looking for them, so I’m inclined to avoid sales generally. But they seem to be part of the social fabric here so I’ve joined in.
Stoops really are wonderful. Because these are our surrogate yards and because they’re so close to the sidewalk they are one of the best parts of urbanity. When we first moved to Brooklyn, we found ourselves living a few doors down from Spike Lee’s dad, Bill Lee, whom you might know as a jazz bassist and composer as well as the famous filmmaker’s father. He and his wife had been fixtures of the neighborhood for many years (Spike grew up in the brownstone where his dad still lives) and had such stories to tell. In fact, our fascination with him had nothing to do with his son, although we did get just a bit of backstory on Spike’s memoir released that year.
We first met Bill one day when coming home to find a crack-addict doing what they do on our stoop. I had my (then) two year old in my arms and wasn’t really sure how to handle it. Bill calmly stood between us and Daniel (the addict’s name we found out after many many encounters) so we could get in. I learned a lot that year.
We moved from Ft. Greene to Carroll Gardens more than a year ago. Here too you find a lot of the old neighborhood folks out on their stoops always eager to say hello. I’ve met more neighbors in two years in Brooklyn than I did the previous ten years in Manhattan. Carroll Gardens in particular has a lot of stories (it was once an Italian neighborhood and there’s just enough left of that to get a sense of what it might have been like), but you never hear them except for when you’re out in one of the old bakeries, or of course sitting on your stoop.
comments
Gee, are you interested in getting a cut from my sale? I need your stoop! No stoops in Chelsea! LOL
– Dee (06/05 at 03:58 PM)
Page 1 of 1 pages of comments
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About this Post
- Posted by: Bud Parr
- Date: May 21, 2007
- Filed Under:
Song of Myself: Diary
- Comments:1
- Links to this Post: Technorati
