Bushwick

Thank you for writing this, Anna. 1027 was my childhood home where we’d stay every Christmas when we’d come back, seeing as my uncle lived there. That house held so many memories of my youth and watched four generations of my family grow within it. When my aunt tried to take everything after he died, we lost it and she ended up having to sell it after a lawsuit settlement with the state. I never got to visit it again since his passing in 2020. That was one of my favorite places in the world and I still have vivid dreams walking through the halls and such. I still see my tío Julio sitting at the window with his morning coffee, watching people pass. Or my abuela in the yard with her fig tree, as I bear fruit with her. He truly loved that place, always remodeling and such. More than a house, it was a home, it was a member of our family. A fortress, a solitude. I found this article attempting to find photos of it, in a place between limerence and nostalgia. Thank you again for capturing it as it was. I hope whatever is built over it feels the love that we poured into the land. I hope the ground smells like my memories and everything we left behind. That mansion was more than a mansion to us, it was a safe haven for the Guatemalan immigrants that lived before me. I only pray that they treat the soil with such care that we gave.

I very much enjoyed reading this article on the Pope mansion. Such a shame that so many beautiful old homes have been lost. The author took delight with the name of one of Mr. Pope's sisters, "Kunigunde". The name is Germanic in origin, one prominent woman with that name being the sister of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. So there. :)

this should make all the hipster transplants living in bushwick on mommy and daddy's dime feel right at home.

yawn... who cares?