I’d say that the holiday season has brought more tourists to Bedford Street, but the truth is, there are always tourists on Bedford. They come from near and far to photograph the building which was apparently used as the apartment exterior on TV’s Friends. (I have zero sentimental attachment to the locale, as I almost never watched the program. When it was new, I thought, oh, I’ll tune in and see what the fuss is. A monkey was turning on a stereo. But then, in real life, I saw out the window that a parking space had opened up on the street below, and that was that for me and Friends.)
This morning, though, I encountered some out-of-towners who weren’t sitcom site stalkers. And for the second time in a month, I had to remove my earphones to hear someone ask me for directions. It took a bit longer today, because it’s cold here in the Northeast, so I had to remove my fleece headbandy thing that covers my ears and then remove my gloves before I could finally yank out the aforementioned earphones. As a courtesy to my inquisitors, however, I do not take any more of their valuable time fumbling to turn off my iPod. I’ll find my spot in the album or podcast later, when I once again walk a lonely road, the only one that I have ever known.
The friendly faced fellow, who was with a group of two or three others, held a section of map in front of me. A small rectangle had been drawn on it with a blue ballpoint. I had not yet made the mental GPS leap from the streets on the map to the streets where we stood when he uttered—in an overseas accent—the phrase “smallest house in New York.”
“Ah, I know where that is!” I proclaimed with a rare brandishing of confidence. “Follow me.” I can imagine being a tour guide.
As we began to walk, my confidence dissipated slightly. I definitely knew the house in question was nearby—but had I passed it before encountering these folks? My confidence returned as I glimpsed a side view of the oval plaque which hangs above the door at 75 1/2 Bedford St., a.k.a. the Edna St. Vincent Millay house.
The house, the narrowest in the city, was in the news a couple of summers back when it went on the market for $2.7 million. I’d been aware of it long before that, and it was never really the narrowness that stood out. (Really, for Manhattan real estate, it doesn’t seem that skinny.) No, I’m just a sucker for a historical marker.
There was also a recent stretch when I had a morbid fascination with Millay, after a clumsy misreading of a quote from her poem “Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies.” Let’s just say I thought it was much, much darker than it actually is.
The gentleman thanked me for the assistance, and added with a laugh, “It’s too small!”
“You could miss it,” I agreed.
Jack Silbert, curator