“I’m exhausted with life in New York. I’m going back to Seoul to find a teaching job. Let’s go our separate ways and find our own paths.”
As if he had been agonizing all night, my roommate took off his glasses from his hollow eyes and wiped them slowly. It was early 1984. My husband, our single roommate, and I—living together in Soho, Manhattan—had been struggling with the ever-rising rent. We had been tip-toeing around each other, hoping someone else would be the first to suggest we part ways. I felt a sense of gratitude that he was the one to finally speak up. We settled the matter with a simple nod.
My husband and I crossed the Williamsburg Bridge into Brooklyn, searching for a space where we could both live and work for a lower rent. Near the East River, under the bridge, the massive Domino Sugar Refinery with its towering chimneys caught our eyes. We walked north along the river, peering into the empty warehouses that lined the area.
We walked as if praying for a room to fall from the sky. We eventually reached the edge of Greenpoint, near Newtown Creek, where Brooklyn ends and Queens begins. A massive, dark red five-story warehouse—a former dye factory—stood at the end of the road like a dead end. We had nowhere left to go. As we stopped to rest our weary legs, we saw a "RENT" sign on a shabby grey door that showed no sign of life.
Inside, on the fifth floor, was a vast, open space of over 14,000 square feet. Along the opposite wall stood dozens of large windows stretching from waist-height to the ceiling. The rattling of the old window frames felt like a welcome. Through those windows, Manhattan across the East River was visible at a glance. I leaned out, standing on my tiptoes.
My eyes followed the light shimmering on the murky water. The building’s exterior met the river directly; it was an ugly factory, yet it felt like a corner of Venice floating on the water.
A pot-bellied man drew lines with chalk, marking every two windows. “Pick whichever space you want to live in,” he said. “If you build the walls yourselves and use the communal bathroom and shower, I’ll give you a cheap rate.”
The space between two windows measured about 1,000 square feet. The ceilings were twice as high as a normal house—perfect for an art studio. While other tenants chose spaces with level floors and clean ceilings, we chose the one near the communal bathroom, even though the floor and ceiling were a mess. It meant we could connect pipes and have our own private bath.
At night, I looked out at Manhattan, shining like a jewel, looking like a giant cruise ship floating on the water. I thought of my father’s constant grumbling when we moved from Namsan-dong to Itaewon in Seoul: “Once you leave the Four Main Gates, it’s hard to get back inside.” It was the same here: “Once you leave Manhattan, it’s hard to go back.” Could we ever return? It felt like an impossible dream.
One night, I woke up and turned over, only to see a total stranger lying next to me! I jumped up in a fright. “Oh my god! What? What’s wrong?” my husband asked. His face was so swollen and distorted from mosquito bites that he looked like a different man. In the heat of summer, the mosquitoes breeding in the dirty creek were relentless. My husband, who had stepped out into the hallway only to run back in, said, “The guy next door is in worse shape than me. I couldn’t even recognize him.”
We spent our first summer as newlyweds fighting off swarms of mosquitoes, waiting for winter. On windy days, the stench from the Newtown Creek wastewater treatment plant eleven blocks away would drift toward us. It felt like sitting in a cesspool. Between the mosquitoes, the smell, and the five-story climb in a building where the elevator was off-limits—a climb that felt like scaling the Himalayas—we endured.
The winter we longed for was not what we expected. Frigid winds pierced through the old windows, turning our unheated space into a freezer. I actually found myself missing the mosquitoes. We built a small plastic-sheet tent in one corner and huddled around an electric heater, staying far away from the windows I had once called "romantic."
That winter refused to leave. Spring approached slowly, teasing me. I moved with dull, heavy motions, my thin frame buried under every layer of clothing I owned. It was actually warmer outside. I finally understood why homeless people wear winter coats even in summer. Even the arm-length rats huddled in the trash piles in front of the building, shivering too hard to move when I passed by. Not wanting to disturb my fellow "shipmates," I stepped cautiously through the melting snow and leaned against the wall to soak up the sun.
In the midst of that hazy, unstable life, I became pregnant. There was a freight elevator, but it was reserved for factory operations. On lucky days, the operator would give me a silent wink to hop on. On unlucky days, my husband had to pull me from above and push me from below as we navigated the five flights of stairs, until eventually, my belly grew too large for me to leave at all.
If I hadn't had a child, would I still be living in that cheap building, embracing the hardship? Having a child is like a master’s whip that snaps you into reality. I don’t know where the strength and courage came from, but for the sake of our baby, we fought to fly toward a new nest. We ended up just a few blocks away.
Let me pause my "miserable" story to introduce the neighborhood of Greenpoint.
In the 17th century, sailors navigating the coast came across a grassy, protruding point of land. Because of its lush greenery, it was named Greenpoint. When I first arrived, however, I saw no green at all. It felt as if I had arrived in the desolate Wild West, unarmed and trying to cultivate a wasteland. Later, many artists flocked here, raising their voices to remove the smell of the treatment plant and planting trees to turn this desert into an oasis. Today, it has reclaimed its name.
Greenpoint was originally settled by Irish and German dockworkers. As they grew wealthier and moved to "better" neighborhoods, they were replaced by Polish immigrants. Most of the Polish men worked in factories or construction, while the women worked as office cleaners. Scattered among them, like "ugly ducklings," were Puerto Rican families.
Years ago, most apartments in Greenpoint didn't have bathrooms. There was a public bath on Huron Street that opened in 1903, designed in a style reminiscent of ancient Rome. It’s a condo now, but at its peak, it served over a thousand people a day. As people began installing private baths, the numbers dwindled to about twenty by the 1950s, and it finally closed.
Most residential buildings were three or four-story tenements built in the early 1900s, identical to the Tenement Museum in downtown Manhattan. The bathrooms, added later, were tiny and cramped into a corner of the kitchen. The layouts were "railroad style," with open rooms lined up in a row. A living room faced the street, a bedroom sat in the middle, and the kitchen and bathroom were at the back, facing the yard. Each building had a small backyard behind the kitchen window—a much-needed breathing space.
Two houses down lived David’s mother, a Polish neighbor. From my back window, I could see her moving in and out of a small shed where she made smoked kielbasa. We first met at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn. As I waited anxiously for the nurse to call my name, she—with her wide, blue eyes—asked if she could sit in the empty seat next to me. My second child was born on December 18th; her son, David, was born on December 23rd. We had met in that hospital hallway for seven months. As immigrants in a far-off land, we spent those long waits talking about how to establish ourselves and live well. The large woman from Poland and the small woman from the East became fast friends.
“What happened? Why are you here?” I asked one day when I ran into her in front of my building after months of silence while busy with the babies. “I’m here to buy that building at the end of the block,” she said. It turned out she was buying a building with sixteen apartments and two storefronts. Who would have thought our bond from the hospital would lead to us living on the same block?
She had worked as a live-in maid for a Jewish family for over ten years since arriving in the U.S., saving every penny. David’s father had also saved by working in a blacksmith shop for years. They pooled their money to buy the building. Having earned it that way, she treated the house with immense care. Whenever I saw her sweeping the sidewalk, her past would flash through my mind.
“When I worked for the woman in the Manhattan mansion, she always made me scrub the floors on my hands and knees,” she told me once. “Look at my knees. The skin is dark and calloused. I lived in that house for ten years and didn't spend a single cent.”
Whenever I saw David’s father, who always looked somber, I would fall into other thoughts. “My husband has a ringing in his ears that torments him,” she said. “I heard Eastern medicine can treat it. Do you know an acupuncturist?” “Oh no, how did that happen?” “At the shop, a heavy piece of iron fell from above and hit his head. Since then, the noise won’t stop. I’m afraid he’ll hear it for the rest of his life.”
She and I met at the park almost every day while raising our kids. On hot summer days, she would fill old juice bottles with water and freeze them for David. She was so frugal that the labels on the bottles were worn away. Eventually, she became wealthy enough to pay off her mortgage and buy 52 acres of land in Upstate New York. She became so prosperous that she would hunt deer on her own land and make kielbasa to share with me.
“Are you going to vote for Obama?” she whispered once, as if sharing a secret. “A Black man won’t do. An Asian, maybe, but don’t vote for Obama.” Most Polish people kept their distance from Black people. The neighborhood was "bright"—almost too bright. You rarely saw a Black person, nor were there many Asians. In my children’s elementary school, there was one Vietnamese child and my two children; they were the only Asians in the whole school.
Despite her frugality, David’s mother loved shopping for clothes on Fulton Street. Every time she visited Poland, she would take five large suitcases stuffed with clothes. Polish people seemed to love denim and leather. “I almost died on my last trip home,” she laughed. “I had a layover in Hamburg before catching the flight to Warsaw. I had to go to the bathroom so badly, but I had so many bags! I was too afraid to leave them outside, so I held it until I nearly burst.”
An elderly lady in my building also worked as a maid for a Jewish family. Despite her job, she always dressed in high-end furs and leather. A parent from school once asked me curiously, “Is that elegant woman in your building the owner? She wears a different expensive outfit to church every Sunday. She must be rich.” Contrary to what people thought, her husband’s "business" was packing boxes full of clothes, wrapping them in plastic, and sending them to Poland to be sold. The clothing trade in the neighborhood was booming.
Perhaps because they came from a communist country, they seemed to lack a sense of "service." Whenever I, an Asian woman, entered a shop with a Polish clerk, her eyes seemed to say, “If you’re here to buy something, buy it and get out.” If I dared to ask a price, she would press her thin lips together and stare at me with a look of pure annoyance. Most of the Polish women had very thin, straight lips. When they pursed them, their faces looked like white masks with two blue circles for eyes and a single red line for a mouth.
Occasionally, someone newly arrived from Poland who had never seen an Asian person would stare at my every move as if I were a monkey in a zoo. “Lord, give me peace,” I would habitually mutter, ignoring their stares and looking up at the sky with clenched fists. As if in response to my prayer, the dull tolling of a bell would ring out eleven times.
The neighborhood was dotted with old churches with small congregations. Some barely survived on donations from deceased members, eventually being sold and developed into condos. But the Polish churches were always packed. On Sundays, the neighbors would dress up like ladies and gentlemen, parading to church as if it were New Year’s Day. They spent freely on clothes. The procession of people in their hard-earned finery was so long that the first time I saw it, I followed them, thinking something major had happened. This was a people so devoted to their Catholic faith that Pope John Paul II once visited the neighborhood.
The parents I met at school were kind, but in their eyes, I was always a "stranger." There was an unspoken sentiment: “You’re better than a Black person, but you’re still not equal to us whites.”
After dropping my kids at school, I would avoid the gossiping parents and head to the Greenpoint YMCA pool. It was tiny—no bigger than a neighborhood bathhouse in Seoul. Usually, it was just me and the lifeguard. It was so quiet that the only sound was the water. It was almost embarrassing. One day, a man appeared like a naked knight. I looked up, relieved to have company, but then—oh no! It was a man I had observed from afar. He jumped into the pool wearing not a swimsuit, but the same blue-striped grey underwear he always wore on the street.
He lived ten blocks south of me. He looked like an old man who had never taken a bath in his life, as if he had just emerged from a pile of trash. Among the industrious Polish neighbors, he was probably the only one who didn't work. I saw him every morning in the park; except for the coldest winter days, he was always in shorts—or rather, just boxer briefs. Two small dogs, tied together by a short string, followed him diligently.
He once had a crumbling house and a wife or girlfriend. Then the house was demolished and the woman left. His lot was cut in half because he couldn't pay property taxes to the city. He kept a junked car on one side of a chain-link fence; the other half became a wasteland of weeds. He hung everything he could—mostly old clothes—on the fence. Without a bathroom or kitchen, he used a table and chairs on the sidewalk in front of the junked car as his living room and kitchen.
In the mornings, I could see him sitting there, spreading something on a roll. Shrivelled fruit and bread lay scattered on the table. The seasoning bottles were so covered in road dust you couldn't tell what was in them. Pigeons would flutter around him, pecking at his leftovers. After his meal, he would sit in a rocking chair like a penniless philosopher, reading a book. “Does this man ever bathe? If so, where?” I had wondered. And then, I met him at the YMCA! Since he couldn't swim, he thrashed and huffed through the water. He kicked and splashed wildly, trying to move forward. The water from the tiny pool overflowed, creating a chaotic mess. “Calm down, man,” the lifeguard yelled. The man ignored him, thrashing around in different "poses" while asking for swimming tips. I couldn't get out, but I felt uneasy staying in the water. I huddled in a corner of the pool, feeling restless. That day, I bathed with him.
The Greenpoint that felt so close to my life began to change in the early 2000s as gentrification sparked a construction boom. The Domino Sugar Refinery, which had operated for 150 years, finally drew its last breath like a dying dinosaur and closed in 2004. After my husband and I settled here as pioneers, many other artists followed, drawn by the empty warehouses and cheap rent.
Most of those artists were handymen who transformed the empty, cheap shells of the city into a vibrant neighborhood. Galleries and cafes naturally followed, turning the area into a cultural hub. Of course, developers followed the artists, and property prices skyrocketed. Rent rose sharply, and the Polish and Puerto Rican populations dwindled. In their place came young, professional "hipsters." Eventually, the artists were also pushed out by the rent they had helped create.
Now, I often see young professionals or aspiring artists from other states and Europe roaming around with maps, looking for apartments. At the turn of the month, the streets are busy with moving trucks as they move in with their friends. On holidays, parents visit to see how their children are living; they often get parking tickets because they aren't used to the street rules. When I make eye contact with them, I feel a strange sense of guilt, as if I were the one who gave them the ticket. I quickly say "Hi" and duck into my house.
If an artist's path goes well, they can stay put for a while. But being a professional artist is never easy. As one group moves in with hope, another quietly disappears, folding up their dreams and heading home. Every time someone moves out, I find a small "treasure." They leave behind boxes of stretcher bars, paint, furniture, clothes, and shoes on the sidewalk or hanging on fences. Since they were used by artists with good taste, the items are often stylish. Since I’ve managed to maintain my youthful figure, the clothes usually fit me perfectly. I tell myself I have to keep exercising just for these days. Sometimes I find brand-new clothes with the tags still on—luxury brands I’ve never heard of. I have fun Googling the prices and making sure I don't miss anything on my morning walks.
At a gallery opening, I saw a woman elegantly carrying a clutch. It looked familiar. As soon as I got home, I searched and found the exact same bag. I had tucked it away, unsure whether to keep it or toss it. I Googled the brand—it was a luxury item I could never afford myself. My young neighbor had thrown it away when she moved. I was dying to brag: “My outfit and bag were all free gifts from the moving hipsters!”
There were other "treasures," too. Because there are so many film studios in Greenpoint, movies are filmed in the neighborhood all the time. Notes are often tucked into my mailbox: “We want to film in your space. Please contact us.”
I open my mailbox every day, hoping for no "headache" letters, if not good news. I scan the mail with a serious face, sighing with relief as I toss the junk and handle the bills. All I want is for today to be as peaceful as yesterday. There was a time when the pile of bills made me want to flee to some far-off place. Should I go to Haenam in Korea? Someone said it’s the "end of the land"—surely no one would chase me that far for money. Or should I join the Unification Church? I heard they provide for your basic needs if you believe.
I opened the mailbox one day, bracing myself for whatever was lurking inside. A bright orange slip of paper caught my eye. “Looking for a studio for film shooting. Please contact.” I smelled money. I called, and they arrived almost immediately. They snapped photos of the studio and said they’d check with the manager. Soon, the manager and interior designer arrived. They needed three days: one to prep, one to shoot, and one to restore the space. The fee they offered was far more than I expected. Plus, they offered to pay for a hotel for those three days.
I struggled to keep my eyes fixed, trying to act "cool" while staring at the ceiling. Just by signing the contract, a huge sum of money would be mine. Excited, I bought a case of the wine I always drink. As I sipped a glass, I wondered, “What should I do with this money?” I thought about getting that skin treatment my friend recommended—getting rid of the freckles I’d neglected and fixing my sagging eyes. I thought about buying a flat-screen TV, since we’d lived without one for so long. Or maybe I’d visit my younger son in Bangkok and then tour the "end of the land" in Korea. My mind was busy researching how to spend that money dozens of times a day.
After signing the contract and depositing the check, I came home. But alas—an expense exactly equal to that check was waiting for me in the living room like a toad. I suppose that’s why people say when unexpected money comes in, an unexpected need always follows. I looked up at the sky; the clouds were exceptionally fluffy. While I was busy trying to catch those unreachable clouds, a great wave had come and swept away all my hopes, leaving nothing but that one case of wine to drink on the Fourth of July.
Every Independence Day, I hear the loud sounds of people climbing onto the roofs to watch the fireworks. After moving from place to place in New York, I was lucky enough to end up in a spot where the fireworks happen right over my head! The Macy’s fireworks are almost always held on the East River. For thirty minutes, three barges vomit fireworks into the sky. It feels like a war zone—the sparks rain down toward your face, and in the final minutes, they dump every last bit of gunpowder in a relentless barrage. It felt like a waste to watch them alone, so I’ve shared the view with many friends over the years. Looking back, many of them have since passed away or moved back to Korea.
Having seen them so many times, I’ve grown indifferent. I sit on the roof and observe the backs of my friends as they watch the display in the darkness. The couples who once hugged with such intensity, as if they couldn't live without each other, have mostly divorced and vanished. Meanwhile, the couples who sat calmly side-by-side are the ones who are still together. “These guys are incredible! In Namsan, you’d see one burst and wait forever for the next, but here it’s like a downpour. It’s like a war zone!” one friend had shouted excitedly. Later, news reached me that he had left his wife and daughter to remarry a younger woman and have more children. Another couple who had repeatedly embraced during every explosion also divorced; the man eventually came back to watch the fireworks with a different woman.
I suppose love that burns like fireworks doesn't last long. The fireworks soar with a roar, coloring the sky in ecstasy, and then suddenly vanish. In an instant, they are gone, leaving nothing but a hollow trail of grey smoke in the dark blue sky. Love that ignites easily also fades quickly, repeating the cycle of excitement and disappointment. Every Independence Day, I wonder where the couples we watched with are now—are they sharing a new love, or are they suffering from the emptiness of a love that ended?
Maria, an Austrian immigrant who escaped WWII and lived in this building, used to say, “The neighborhood hardly changes; only I grow old and change.” But after she died, the neighborhood changed—it changed far too much. Thirty and forty-story condos sprouted like mushrooms along the East River. The Empire State Building, which I had watched from my kitchen window for so many years, was now hidden behind high-rises.
My neighbors have vanished, too. Where did they all go? If Jose from the back house—my source of information—were still here, I’d ask him, but he’s already passed away. The deli across the street closed recently, and I saw strangers renovating the inside. It looked incredibly chic. It used to be a little corner store where the owner would let my husband take beer and snacks on credit when a friend visited unexpectedly. I’ll miss it.
I haven't seen David’s mother; maybe she’s at her house Upstate. Lisa from next door, who used to lean on a pillow by the window waiting for the mailman on welfare-check day and yell “What’s up?” when she saw me—she’s gone. Jay from across the street, who would sit in his car and tell me the neighborhood gossip in his raspy, booming voice—the car and the man are both gone. And come to think of it, Alex, who swept the front of the house every morning, is gone, too.
The single Hispanic mothers who had dropped out of high school to raise their babies have all disappeared. The crying babies in strollers have grown up and found their own paths, and the elderly have passed away. But where did the middle-aged neighbors go? Whether I liked them or not, they were my neighbors. Did they flee in the middle of the night because they couldn't pay the rent? Or did they take a lump sum of cash from a landlord eager to cash in on the changing neighborhood and return to Puerto Rico? Many of the Polish tenants moved to Maspeth and Ridgewood in Queens, where the rent is cheaper.
In their place are young, fresh-faced strangers from other states and Europe, excited about their new lives. Even on weekdays, they sit in cafes with their computers instead of going to work. At sunset, they move to the bars and enjoy a leisurely life. I was so curious about how they make a living that I asked my hipster son. “They probably have trust funds from their parents or grandparents, or they live off stock dividends,” he said.
Artists without trust funds flocked to Greenpoint because of the cheap rent and empty warehouses by the river, perfect for studios. They turned it into a wealthy area. But then, unable to afford the skyrocketing rent, they were the ones pushed out. They moved south along the East River to Red Hook, or to Bushwick and Upstate to Beacon. And those places, too, became developed. They develop a place, and then they leave—over and over again.
In a way, living as an artist is a reckless act. You have no time to make money because you're busy painting. You have no money, yet you need a large space to work. it’s a life of pursuing something realistically impossible, a life that doesn't add up. After decades of enduring, most artists receive no reward and are kicked out by the rent. And yet, the reason we cannot throw away the brush is perhaps the same reason one cannot quit a drug.
Early one Saturday morning, I walked along the East River where no one else had stepped. The footprints of ducks and seagulls on the sandy bank joined and scattered, leaving faint traces in the tide. I saw a seagull standing perfectly still, as if it had given up on flying. It stared at me without moving. It had only one leg. I wondered how it had lost its leg and ended up living in this harsh world, looking different—just like me.
The sound of the ferry docking to pick up passengers, the waves slapping against the pier, the wind rustling the leaves—it all felt bittersweet. When the boat heading north to Long Island City and the one heading south to Dumbo both departed, I also left my spot.
the people I knew and the scenery I loved are gone. I felt that it was finally my time to leave, too. After thirty years of nesting in Greenpoint, I crossed the river once more and stopped at the banks of the Hudson. In the end, people and neighborhoods alike flow away just like the river.
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