A View From

There were many perks growing up in Hells Kitchen that were never documented. One was the view of the tennis court at Roosevelt Hospital that I saw daily from a fourth floor window directly across the Street.

Sometimes my view today is almost eerie because it is so similar to the one I watched during those years. Of course, that was half a century ago and undoubtedly, much has changed during that time.

Roosevelt Hospital merged with St. Lukes decades ago, and I never learned if the tennis court survived.

During the 19 years I lived across the street, the view from our fourth floor window was directly into the well maintained court surrounded with greenery. My Mother once told me it was for the Doctors and Nurses to enjoy. I never knew if that was accurate or not. However, it didn’t matter because I always felt I lived across the street from a park.

I didn’t dare to dream I would ever wear white linen shorts or play tennis, but I hoped I would one day live in a house surrounded by trees.

Three years ago after traveling from New York to my new home in Michigan I arrived weary and more than a bit apprehensive. When we opened the door to my efficiency apartment in Cordia Senior Living, I guess my facial expression expressed my emotions.

My son, sensing my doubts, merely said, “Mom, think of it as going back to your roots on 58th Street.” My children heard about those roots for most of their lives. Basically, every word I have written and published has returned to the remarkable Hells Kitchen neighborhood.

The next morning when I awoke and gazed out the window, I was overcome with joy. I viewed a park, sans a tennis court, but with a bench quite similar to the one I watched daily at Roosevelt Hospital.

During the past three years, I have become quite accustomed to life in smaller quarters. Since the onset of Covid 19, my apartment has become akin to a nest wrapping me in a cocoon of warmth and memory. The view from my window is now a link to yesterday opening memories of a time when I sat for hours watching unknown tennis players from a fourth floor window perch.

The memories provoke the belief that while Covid 19 is a totally new experience, there were other perilous challenges humanity survived.

Perhaps the terror of polio has vanished, but when I watched the tennis court it was a grim reality. Strep throat took the gift of life away from a childhood friend before the development of penicillin. Another young classmate succumbed to Rheumatic Fever shortly before graduation.

An unexpected gift of a view of a park far away from Hell’s Kitchen has given me the ability to believe America will handle this, too.