by Peter L. W. Osnos
An Especially Good View: Watching History Happen, a memoir that carries a chapter on life in the Belnord from 1948 until 1962.
“The Belnord is one of Manhattan’s most formidable apartment buildings. It covers a full city block from 86th to 87th Streets and from Broadway to Amsterdam Avenue. It was built in the early twentieth century, in part (so it is said) as a response to the construction of the Apthorp, a slightly smaller building on 79th and Broadway. The Apthorp was “restricted,” meaning no Jews could live there. The Belnord was bigger and grander in scale, with more cherubs embedded in the entry arch. A defining feature of both buildings was the center courtyard with a large fountain. There were separate “halls” around the circumference. Curious children in the Belnord, of which I was one, could explore the basements, including a circuit for horse carriages and a “penthouse” that may have been there for servants.
My parents couldn’t afford an apartment at the Belnord on their own, so they joined with another Polish family of three and a cousin of my mother’s, Edzia Markoe, and rented a spacious and airy apartment with eight rooms, including a kitchen and maid’s room. After a year, the other Polish family left and moved further up 86th Street. Edzia, who never married, had a small greeting card company, and she stayed for what must have been a decade until she inherited an apartment in Greenwich Village. The notion of her sharing the space with us did not seem strange. It was, in its way, central European, where large apartments would have boarders.”
Excerpt From
An Especially Good View: Watching History Happen
Peter L.W. Osnos
