Matt nodded.
“Okay,” he said, slapping his palms on the table. “What do you want me to do?”
Just then the downstairs door buzzer went off, a faraway sound from up here in the duplex.
“First, I want you to let the pastry man in while I change clothes,” I said. “And then I want you to clear the sidewalk.” I glanced at his tanned skin, the familiar bronzed coloring of the perpetual equatorial summer. “You remember how to shovel snow, don’t you?”
Matt raised his dark eyebrow and gave me a look that seemed to say I’d been the one doing the shoveling for the last few minutes. Lucky for him, I had a coffeehouse to open.
Eighteen
Until the 1840s, SoHo — the truncated term for the neighborhood in lower Manhattan south of Houston Street — was a sleepy residential section of Manhattan. Then the building boom of the 1850s transformed it into an area of expensive retail stores and lofts built to house light manufacturing.
During this commercial building spree, the use of then-inexpensive cast-iron materials instead of carved stone became the vogue, making opulent, Italianate architecture like the 1857 Haughwout Building on Broadway near Broome Street the norm. Iron columns, pedestals, pediments, brackets, and entranceways were mass-produced for so many SoHo buildings that the area became known as the Cast Iron District.
By the 1960s, however, the facades of these structures were looking pretty worn from a century or more of neglect, and the once pricey lofts had begun to house cheap sweatshops. At that time, an entire floor of an industrial building could be rented for next to nothing, and impoverished artists did exactly that. Within a decade SoHo became the East Coast mecca for art, and by the 1970s hundreds of art galleries, large and small, mingled with antique dealers along West Broadway, Broome, Greene, and Barrow.
Transformed into a bohemian colony, the exhilarating mix of art, design, and architecture attracted the uptown crowd to the area, and by the late 1970s a new brand of tenant was buying up lofts. It was the era of the art patron rather than the starving artist, the latter forced to search the west side’s warehouse districts and the outer boroughs to find inexpensive industrial space. By 1980, the newly renovated lofts of SoHo were more likely to be written about in Architectural Digest than in Andy Warhol’s Interview.
Fortunately, the “artsy” character of the neighborhood never truly faded, and within the irregular borders of SoHo — and in some areas around it, too — the largest concentration of galleries and museums in North America could still be found.
A promising artist or designer could work anywhere he or she liked, but a showcase in a SoHo gallery was the essential element in a truly successful artist’s or designer’s portfolio, which was why the ambitious still poured into New York City year after year upon art school graduation.
On this bright, blustery, and cold Saturday afternoon, the narrow streets of SoHo were crowded. Last night’s snow appeared fluffy and white on rooftops and car hoods, but on the streets and sidewalks, foot and car traffic had turned the early snowfall into slushy black puddles.
Tucker was now baby-sitting the Blend, so Matt and I could be free to take off. By the time we reached the perimeters of SoHo, all clouds had vanished in the blue sky. In the streets, we mingled with tourists, day shoppers, and the lucky few who could afford to live in this trendy, too-swank neighborhood.
It was strange to be here again with Matteo at my side. I had been so busy managing the Blend that I had not been back to SoHo very often since I’d returned to New York City, and much had changed. Long-established art dealerships like the Perry Gallery, the Atlantic Gallery, and The Richard Anderson Gallery still resided side-by-side with edgier art showcases like the Revolution Gallery and Ferri Negtiva. But the area had become so upscale that Prada, Armani, and Chanel had established their presence here, too, rubbing shoulders with Pamela Auchincloss and the First Peoples Gallery.
Salons of designer jewelry and haute couture also seemed to be edging out the smaller galleries and antique shops. But the most noticeable difference was the absence of the World Trade Center, whose twin towers had once loomed over the neighborhood like giant silver sentinels, guarding New York Harbor.
Despite the many changes, my memories of this area were rich. Early in our marriage, Matt and I enjoyed shopping here, often accompanied by Madame, who was always pleased to dispense her wisdom and good taste in judging our selections. These days — post Matt’s cocaine habit, our divorce, and the raising of Joy — there was no way in hell we could afford to shop in most of these pricey outfits.
Though gentrification had spread through much of SoHo, there were still tiny pockets of low rent stores, dive bars, and tarot card parlors. Death Row was located on such a block, an area north of the exclusive Mitchell Algus Gallery on Thompson.
Along a row of three-and four-story buildings as yet untouched by the latest spurt of renovation, Matteo and I found several storefronts for minor galleries, low-end antique dealers, and vintage clothing stores.
“According to the address it should be right around here,” Matteo said, glancing at the handwritten note he’d scribbled down before we left the Blend.
I scanned the dingy storefronts and found the Belleau Gallery, Shaw’s Antiques, Velma’s Vintage Clothing, Waxman’s Antique Stoves and Fireplaces, but no sign of Death Row Gallery.
Matt touched my shoulder. “There it is.”
The exterior of the exclusive art gallery that had employed Sahara McNeil did not look anything like I had expected. Instead of a trendy storefront, Matteo directed my attention to an anonymous three-story building with a dingy antique shop on the first floor. Next to the antique shop entrance there was a flight of concrete steps leading down, below the level of the street to a basement door. Above that door, painted in five-inch stenciled letters were the words DEATH ROW.
Negotiating the irregularly constructed stairs, we stood before a barred steel door — not an aluminum security gate so familiar to New Yorkers but a real cast-iron door taken off a nineteenth century prison cell. The door was locked. A black iron doorbell fixture in the shape of a skull hung next to the entrance.
Matteo pressed the bell, and I heard a funereal gong sound deep inside the building. I almost expected Lurch from the Addams Family to appear — instead it was a clone of Uncle Fester who buzzed us in.
The man stood at the end of a long hallway lined with framed art. Inside, the air was warm and close, and the lighting had a subtle scarlet tinge I found unsettling.
“Welcome. The gallery is this way,” the fat man said jovially, waving us toward him.
The walls of the nondescript hallway were insulated brick painted institutional green. The floor was covered with cheap green tile as well. Though dismal and ugly, the hall was hung with expensively framed art prints and original theater posters. I didn’t recognize any of the artists and the plays were mostly unknown to me.
I spied a poster for an Off-Broadway musical called The Jack the Ripper Revue: A Tale of Saucy Jack. There was also a marquee for a Broadway version of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein which opened and closed sometime in the 1980s, and another Broadway poster for a musical version of Stephen King’s Carrie. It was the King poster that jogged my memory.
“I understand the décor of this hallway,” I whispered to my ex. “It’s from the Stephen King story ‘The Green Mile.’ The long green hall of the prison the condemned walked to the place of execution.”
“Well, this is supposed to be Death Row.”
“And so it is,” said the big man, standing in front of us. Though portly, he was clad from head to toe in black Armani — slacks, shirt, and jacket. He held his hands behind his back so his bald, pink, oversized head was the only splash of color in a shadowy silhouette. As was the fashion of late, the bald man’s shirt was buttoned tightly around his neck, and he wore no tie.