Jazz Decorating
The coop I live in has been in Downtown Brooklyn for 16 years. Over the years the neighborhood has transformed from three story buildings to a corn maze of skyscrapers (CC the Eye of Sauron). The house has stood through 4 presidential terms, a financial crisis, Hurricane Sandy, and the Covid pandemic.
The original coopers were biking through an Occupy-era Brooklyn when they saw a for rent sign in an upstairs window of a low brick building. The first house members, a motley collection of artists, soon-to-be chocolate entrepreneuers, female orgasm experts, and engineers moved in. They renovated the space themselves––stripping wood floors, installing appliances, and building storage space.
A year later, they discovered that the upstairs neighbor they sublet from, in addition to being a hoarder, was stealing their rent money without paying the landlord.
Somehow they convinced the landlord that they were responsible tenants (or at least not going to staple layers upon layers of old cloth onto the walls in a way that required archaeological excavation to remove), so they took over the top floor as well.
After nearly 6 months of hard labor and renovations, they opened that floor as a bed and breakfast. Each house member was responsible for cooking 1 breakfast a week and 1 day of room turnover for guests. In return, the b&b paid for everyone's rent with an additional stipend. Matt, the last OG standing, says this was how he got very very good at making quiche.
Eventually, the city law changed, the landlord was bought out, and they closed the B&B to bring in more house residents, bringing the total house number to 10 people.
This is the last year of the coop, in this physical form. The menace on the horizon finally struck. Our landlord is going to tear down the building and replace our 1910 brick three-story with a shining skyscraper, just like the new 50 story one next door. We will be moving, most scattering to the outskirts of Brooklyn where affordable rents might be found. It is a time of change.
Which is to say, we are living in our feelings these days, grateful for the gift of having community in a city that can be famously brutal.
Last Tuesday, Matt and I were standing in the kitchen. On the shelf next to us was the Bear O'Bears, a honey bottle shaped like a bear now filled with haribo gummy bears. Our housemate Anna's disembodied face haunted us from the cabinet as it had for the three years since our Surrealist Halloween party.
The piano, of which a musician once said 'I didn't know a piano could get this out of tune', was in the corner. A collection of Alayna's colorful handmade paper lamps sat on top of it.
The disco strawberry, a feature of the house since long before I moved in, hung in the corner glittering and ripe––catching the light squeezing between a gap in skyscrapers.
"You know, it's just not going to be the same living in a new place or just with a parter" Matt said, waving his arm to outline the room (presumably including the wooden box labeled "TNT" and the 200 record record collection). "I've been visiting some places," he said, "and they're beautiful. Great details, nice architecture but they're so sterile."
He pointed at the wall of mirrors, "We put up those shelves 8 years ago. And then you moved in and cleared out the books and added those mirrors, and someone's just re-arranged them and put those dried flowers in the vase. There are things in here that none of us own or know who did. You couldn't recreate this. We're responding to what's there, in harmony or conflict."
He thought for a second. "It's like...jazz. Jazz decorating". I took a sip of my coffee and nodded.
A cooperative home, especially one with a legacy, is more than the sum of its parts. It is a kind of third thing, nurtured and cared for by the current residents but with an existence beyond us. It is a rolling accumulation of experiences, indiosyncracies, and Projects finished and unfinished. It weathers with use. Why is the bathroom next to the washer named Ocean Paradise and why is a picture of Larry David taped to the ceiling?
Who wrote the poem on the electrical box in the fire escape? How did someone acquire a glass case full of blue swallowtails?
WHY on earth do we have 5 different graters. Could some house–ancestor have forsee our Friday night, 6 of us shredding carrots in a circle on the floor for Lena's birthday cake?
In a cooperative-home there is no hyper-tuning to the tastes and preferences of a single individual. No easy ikea aesthetic or sleek MCM revival.
It can be wearying. The pink alpaca blanket does not really go with the couch cushions in my opinion, but my opinion is one among many. Coops teach you flexibility, timing and the ability to riff. Jazz.