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I lived in an upscale part of the Bronx called Riverdale, when I grew up. I say it was upscale because a lot of the houses in the area were big fancy ones. It also had a number of fancy private schools, Barnard School for Boys, the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Horace Mann School, and Manhattan College.  And I’m going to guess that the average income of Riverdale residents was upper-middle class, though I can’t be sure. You see, my parents were from Germany and they were not upper-middle-class. My father was a shipping clerk, my mother, when she did work, worked for Fanny Farmer’s Chocolate in their factory. We did not live in a large house, we lived in an eleven-story apartment building across the street from Manhattan College and opposite a NY City subway depot. I guess we were lower middle class – if that high. 

The apartment I lived in after I was born was on the 11th floor. I lived with my two older sisters and my parents. I never knew my grandparents as they had all passed away before I was born. I was the baby, not only in my immediate family but also in my extended family, including all of my cousins, who also lived throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens. 

I don’t remember much about our apartment on the eleventh floor, but when I was about 5 years old we moved down to the 2nd floor in the same building which is where I lived till I was 21 and finished college. 

The apartment was a two-bedroom one with a kitchen/dinette area, a foyer, and a living room. I was the odd person out growing up. My parents got one room and my sisters got the other bigger room. I on the other hand got whatever space they could fit me into until my older sisters left to live on their own or got married.

At first, my bed was placed in the foyer right next to the piano. This was a very good place for me to be. I didn’t have any privacy but because of the bed’s placement, I could stay up late each night and watch whatever my parents were watching on TV in the living room. I just had to pretend I was asleep whenever my parents or sisters passed me by. 

When I reached the age of about 12, I had outgrown the foyer so my bed was moved to the dining area next to the kitchen. My parents placed a hanging curtain between the two areas so that my room was sort of closed off and I did have some privacy. I also had the refrigerator in my half of the divided room, which might have been one of the reasons that my parents put a chain around the refrigerator and a key lock to make sure that we didn’t get any unintended snacks. A game that my sisters and I played was, “Where’s the key?” Whoever found the key to the refrigerator’s lock, could sneak in and get snacks whenever my parents weren’t looking. I don’t know if my sisters shared the location of the key with each other when they found it, but they certainly didn’t share its location with me. Then again, if I found the key I was not so altruistic to share it with them either. 

When I was about 16 my younger older sister got married and my older older sister moved out, freeing up a room for me. My parents moved into the bigger room that my sisters had used since it had a bathroom attached to it and I got my parent’s old room. 

I now had privacy and a door that could close, walls that I could decorate, but none of the other perks of TV and food that I had had when I was younger. p

I guess that’s the way of things as you grow older. You win some, and you lose some.