Having gotten into reading books again in the early 1970s, I was somewhat excited to have landed the job as a publicity clerk at the New American Library paperback book publishing firm in the mid-1970s.
As a college undergraduate during the 1960s, and even as a high school student in the early 1960s, I had read some of the paperback books that New American Library published under its "Signet" imprint labels. So I initially assumed that the atmosphere within the New American Library publishing firm's skyscraper office headquarters would be less commercially and money-oriented, more intellectual and literature-oriented and more culturally hip than what I had found when previously working briefly in offices; at places like United Merchants & Manufacturers [UM&M], the alumni relations office of Columbia University, Cardinal Export Company, Playtex, Bulova or the Wall Street area offices that Computerware or the Landmark temp agency had sent me to work briefly at, earlier in the 1970s.
By the time I started going to work at the New American Library office, inside one of the skyscraper office buildings in Midtown Manhattan on Avenue of the Americas, on the west side of 6th Avenue around 52nd and 53rd Street, I was now living in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn--which had still not yet been gentrified in the 1970s.
The first floor apartment in which I now lived was in a two-story, two-unit building that looked like it had been built in the late 19th-century or early 1900s. The building was located on the last block before the neighborhood's land touched the Brooklyn waterfront by the East River/Buttermilk Channel/Upper Bay water; very close to where the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel entered under the water to start connecting drivers on its underwater road into Lower Manhattan.
So, despite living for nearly a year and a half in this 2 1/2 room slum apartment (in which the cost of heating and electricity for the unit was paid by the owner-occupant landlord) for which I paid a $100 per month rent, I can't recall ever walking the short distance directly eastward to the Brooklyn shoreline from my apartment building; due to the way there being blocked off, somewhat, by the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel's nearby concrete barriers.
The owner-occupant landlord/superintendent of the Red Hook building in which I lived, Luis, was a married guy with a wife and a few children, including a teenage son; and Luis and his whole family lived in the residential unit above me.
Luis appeared to be in his 40s and spoke English with a Spanish language accent that seemed to indicate he had moved to New York City from Puerto Rico during the 1950s or early 1960s. But his teenage son spoke English without any Spanish accent, in a way that seemed to indicate he had either been born in New York City or been living in New York City since he was a young child.
Apparently, the previous owner of the run-down two-unit slum apartment building had decided that it was no longer profitable to rent the first floor unit I was now living in and/or pay real estate taxes on this property in the 1970s--prior to my moving into the building. And, prior to this Brooklyn neighborhood being gentrified in the mid-1980s, the previous owner apparently could not find anyone else who was willing to purchase the building from him.
So, instead of ceasing to pay taxes and just letting the New York City government take over the building he no longer wished to be bothered with, this landlord--who had inherited the building from his parents in the 1950s or early 1960--just decided to give it away to his second floor tenant and superintendent, Luis, when he walked away from owning the building.
Prior to "inheriting" the slum apartment building in which he and his family lived, Luis worked at some kind of day job or night job, in addition to receiving some reduced rent or additional money (perhaps off-the books) from the previous building owner for acting as the superintendent of the building in which he and his family lived.
And after "inheriting" his slum apartment building from the previous owner when the run-down neighborhod had sitll not been gentrified, Luis contined to work at some kind of day job or night job; and he continued to act as the superintendent of the building in which he and his family now lived rent-free and which he now owned.
But after Luis became the landlord of this building, he apparently realized that he could collect a higher rent from the first floor unit that I had moved into, if he installed a more modern electric stove, a new refrigerator, new ceiling lights, modernized the bathroom toilet, sink and shower, plastered and repaired the apartment's walls and ceiling and made sure the plumbing and radiator in the apartment worked well.
So before putting a "for rent" sign in the front window of this first floor apartment, Luis also spent most of his weekend daytime or any extra time he had off from his day job or night job working himself on fixing up the apartment in which I later moved into during the mid-1970s.
It mattered little to me how newly painted the walls of the apartment I rented was or how new the stove, refrigerator, lights or bathroom fixtures were--as long as everything worked and I could afford the rent on the apartment.
So, ironically, even if Luis hadn't spent so much time modernizing somewhat this apartment, he still would have been able to collect his $100 per month rent--in cash and off-the-books---from me on time, for each of the 18 months I ended up spending there as his quiet--and therefore "model"--first tenant in this apartment.
But on the few occasions when I had to ask Luis to fix something in this apartment during the time I lived there, he seemed surprised to notice that in neither the one-half room kitchen nor the living room did I have any furniture. And in the small bedroom in which I slept, the only furniture there was a mattress on the floor (which I had picked up for free from the street)--after someone living in Brooklyn Heights had left the mattress on the sidewalk outside their brownstone, for for the garbage truck to pick up.
