On a recent weekend, we walked up to see an apartment in a cooperative next to the neighborhood park, where we know a family. The apartment had some nice views of the park, but was otherwise rather unremarkable. The real estate agent was polite and professional, but had little of interest to say about the neighborhood. I wanted to go down to visit the basement, though. We had never been downstairs, but one of our elected officials has mentioned more than once that he enjoyed door knocking in the co-op because the buildings are connected through the basement, allowing him to go from one to the next once inside.Once down in the basement, we were pleasantly surprised by a gallery of discarded artwork and a communal library. Pieces of artwork created a juxtaposition with the rough, utilitarian materials of the basement walls. At the same time, the prints and paintings mostly appeared worn, sometimes slightly damaged, complementing the roughness of their setting. There are other buildings in the area with basements decorated by their supers, yet this one stands out because of its larger size, which makes it more like a gallery instead of a crowded, kitschy nook.
The basement also housed the communal library, where residents left their old books and could rummage for anything of interest left by others. Unlike the typical stray bookshelf, this had the appearance of a small library. Arranged on attractive, mismatched bookshelves well proportioned for the space, and set next to a giant bank of electrical meters, it made the improbable impressive.
