Five Flights Up And Other New York Apartment Stories Toni Schlesinger by Toni Schlesinger 9781568985855, 1568985851 instant download after payment.

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A flop house, a pumping station, a maid's room, a homeless center, a former brothel, a Richard Meier building, a circus trailer, a sail boat, a skyscraper, buildings named Esther & Loraine--just a few of the places New Yorkers call home. For the past eight years writer Toni Schlesinger has been bringing us these "conversation places" in her weekly column in the Village Voice. Through her incisive questioning, original writing, & comic parallel reveries, Schlesinger creates miniature documentaries on the lives, passions, hopes, & heartbreaks of many of New York City's millions.

Five Flights Up chronicles people living in New York's extremes, occupying 150-square-foot spaces, paying over half their income for rent, living eight in an apartment, & taking showers in twos to save time. These are people who make movies in their living room & then sleep in it later. They surround themselves with their baby teeth, with 500 volumes of Moby Dick, plaster rabbis, birds' nests, 30 modernist chairs, 50 loaves of Wonder Bread, & more. In Schlesinger's hands,their stories are much more than novelties.

Artists, actors, dancers, librarians, social workers, bus boys, bankers, porn stars, au pairs, urban planners, bakers, shamans, masseuses, web designers, & students come alive when they discuss where they came from & where they're going. Each interview is a vivid & insightful portrait, revealing the creative energy, camaraderie, desperation, & hope that fuel the daily lives of people in New York & everywhere.