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This Photo Biography/Timeline has been neglected for too long. In fact, I haven’t posted new pictures in 18 months which has been an eventful period for me, having moving from Greenwich Village to Portland, Maine and all.

[8 June 2006] That's the day I closed on my new home and that’s my apartment on the second floor. I first noticed these New England-style “triple deckers” – sometimes called a “three-deckers” – on train trips to Portland from New York and back when I was looking for my new home; they are ubiquitous from Rhode Island on north.

Triple-deckers scream “working class” and “immigrant” and so they were when most were built in the early years of the 20th century. Mine was built in 1899. These days they are more likely to be renovated and sold as condominiums (shouldn’t the plural be condominia?) for middle class families.

Triple deckers are justly famous in architectural circles. The apartments are large, usually have decks or porches - sometimes both front and back - and because they are set on lots and not flush against one another as brick rowhouses generally are, there is light and air on all four sides.

Wikipedia has an entry on triple-deckers. An architectural blog calls them “da bomb.” There is even a long-running play about the residents of a triple-decker building.

Readers from other parts of the U.S. would be shocked at how small homes are in Manhattan, even many that cost millions of dollars. After nearly 40 years in cramped, New York City apartments, I feel like I have finally become a grownup having, now, so much space to rattle around in, including – oh, such grandeur! – a guest bedroom.

[At The Elder Storytelling Place today, kenju is having some fun with elder stereotypes in Mothballs and Throwrugs - the Mark of a Retiree?]