We had one other apartment in Chicago in a building which, sadly, is no longer standing. It was on the corner of Superior and Wabash across the street from Holy Name Cathedral. It was a cool building that had once been owned by the archdiocese and originally had been used half as residences for priests and half for offices of the church. Ours was one of the latter. It had a great view of the cathedral and Chicago’s famous Water Tower and that northeast view is where we spent most of our time. It also had a kitchen that was the size of a postage stamp but I was still able to make beef stroganoff for thirty members of the touring company of Dreamgirls when my friend was in town traveling with the show.
That was our last apartment in Chicago and from there we moved to San Francisco where I had gotten a job singing with the San Francisco Opera.
In S.F. we had three places but I want to talk about our last today because it has a timely memory.
This magnificent place remains, to this day, one of our favorite residences. It was a second floor flat with a huge kitchen with built in hutches and a pie safe, afull pantry with wash tub sinks, a formal dining room paneled three quarters up the wall with a plate rail all around the room, leaded glass built in buffet, sliding pocket doors to a matching sized living room with a working fireplace with leaded glass cabinets and mantel surround, both the living and dining rooms had bay windows onto the street. There were two bedrooms in the back looking over the yard, and a water closet and separate bath.
This, however, pales in comparison to the best Halloween aspect of the apartment.
For those of you who have never heard of “the silent butler”, it is an iron lever at the top of the second floor landing of the stairs in a certain vintage of buildings.
If your door at the foot of the stairs is unlocked you can push down on that lever and it will open the door for you downstairs via an in-wall pulley system. OH YEAH!
Being inherently lazy myself, I tended to use it often. One sunny afternoon some people rang the bell unannounced. You know the ones. White, short sleeved shirts, skinny black ties, nametags and lots of reading material. I answered the door with the butler and they started their spiel, “We were wondering if we could come in and talk with you for awhile.” I said, “Is this about God?” “Why, yes, it is!”
“No thanks, we already have one.” And….SLAM! All without descending the steps!
But the best was on Halloween! There was just enough room at the bottom of the stairs for a tall plant stand with a cauldron of warm water and dry ice on the floor and a big bowl of candy. Loosening the hinge pins on the door made it squeak in a very satisfying way, darkened lights, spooky music and no one behind the slowly opening door was a perfect recipe for scaring the bejeezus out of trick-or-treaters.
The kids loved it…the adults too. I miss my silent butler. A NYC doorman is never quite as much fun!
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