By Ann Von Dehsen, October 17, 2019 — When I was a college student in Boston, there was a housing shortage, making apartments scarce and expensive. My roommate, Karen, and I ended up in one of two small basement apartments in an old brownstone. We looked up at our two windows which were at street level and began to recognize incoming friends by their foot attire, “Look, there’s Gina’s boots,” or “Here come Bobby’s sneakers.” We frequently shared our apartment with mice, cockroaches, and a leaking upstairs pipe, but it was our first apartment and we loved it.
Down the hall in the other basement apartment lived Annie, the 60-year-old chain smoker with her hoarse voice and heavy South Boston Accent. She was difficult to understand, but it was clear that she was having difficulty making ends meet. She held weekly basement garage sales in our hallway and small parking lot selling paperback books and old record albums, although we were usually her only customers.
During baseball season, Annie would put on her visor and carpenters apron when the Red Sox had a home game and sit out front with a big sign advertising the buildings one available spot for $50 per game. She also frequently “hosted” our landlord Nick who we would often see rushing out of her apartment as we left for our 8 am classes.
Landlord Nick looked and acted like Danny Devito’s character Louie in the show, Taxi, with his rough personality and crude language. We often noticed men in suits coming in and out of his office speaking or yelling in Italian laced English, accompanied by rude hand motions. If Karen or I would ask Nick for a reasonable request, such as heat he would often answer with, “Go away, you bother me!”
As the year progressed, Nick spent more time in Annie’s apartment. We noticed an increase in men-in-suits and Nick continued to tell us that we bother him.
One beautiful spring day as we were coming back from class, we saw a black stretch limo parked in front of our building. Out came Nick escorted by 3 men in suits on each side of him who pushed him into a limo. Then, out came a crying Annie saying, “They took away my Nickie!” We never saw him again. in a matter of weeks, Annie movies out and we received a letter saying the building was under new management.
I guess we weren’t the only ones who bothered Nick.