A neighborly day in the beautywood

We were one of the first people to move into our building, so we've been able to watch as the apartments around us slowly fill up. The diversity of people who live here is fascinating. Our landlord has priced the apartments at a dollar a square foot cheaper than other buildings in the Historic Core, so it isn't all just yuppie fucks.

Directly next door to us is a black kid who works as a DJ. He owns a ginormous flat screen TV, but he has sheets hung in the windows instead of proper curtains. He must gig a lot because he's hardly ever home.

Down the hall is a Japanese guy who sells vintage vinyl. He doesn't speak much English, so I'm guessing he buys vinyl in the States and ships it to Tokyo. I caught a glimpse of his aparement when we first moved in, and he had almost no furniture, just boxes of records piled to the ceiling.

On the floor below us, facing the airshaft, there's a woman running a dressmaking business. She has all of the dressmaker's dummies lined up against the patio doors. She also owns a chow and a chihuahua, and MB saw her walking the dogs while wearing a police officer costume with a name tag that read, "Officer Naughty." (ETA: And how cool is that! --MB)

Next door to the dressmaker is a guy with a fish tank in the window. He has a lot of oil paintings stacked up on the floor and I'm guessing he sells them for a living.

There are a lot of young people renting apartments on the lower floors facing the airshaft. I don't know why they're renting apartments that don't get any kind of light or air--maybe it's cheaper to live down there? The apartments do have a shared patio that wraps around the entire floor, and there are no fences dividing the space, so you can step out onto the patio and walk to your neighbor's patio door. The result is that the lower floors are party central--everyone opens the patio doors, runs around on the balcony and drinks together. I'm guessing there's some bed hopping going on as well.

On the roof are the penthouse apartments that rent for $3,500. I didn't think they'd fill up but it turns out that people are renting them for their businesses. For example, one guy is renting three penthouses--one to live in and two to run his catering business. It's pretty cool that we really do have people who use live/work lofts for living and working.