It is old enough, in fact, that it predates its neighbor buildings, and thus doesn’t quite align with the brownstones on the block. The building on East 35th opened in 1859, a few years after its congregation was founded, and it’s the oldest by far on this street. My wife knows me well enough to have said (with her own little sigh) “It’s okay.” Our family navigated around the pile in our foyer for a couple of weeks while I figured out what I had.
Later in the week, I saw that the trash truck had skipped the church that day, and the ledgers were still there, so I made one more haul.
#Myrunning man 170 full
I paused over a few bulky, heavy binders full of financial records ranging from the 1940s forward, and I left those too. I did conduct some triage, leaving behind the stuff that was not unique: some beat-up books with their bindings wrecked, some photocopies of what looked like hymns. A few minutes later, having dropped it at home, I came back for two more armloads. I shook out my bad shoulder as best I could, sighed, and picked up a box. It made it all the way from 1883 to 2021. All of this would be landfill in a matter of hours. I peered up the street, toward Lexington Avenue, and saw garbage bags piled in front of each building. And I had hurt my shoulder not long before, and I couldn’t lift or carry much. Besides, there could be bedbugs in there, or cockroaches. The last thing I need is another bunch of old paper, I thought to myself. The bookshelves run floor to ceiling, and they’re full. My apartment-a short walk from this pile-holds a lot of books, back-date magazines, vintage photographs. Letters.īy my nature, I am a document-digger and an accidental archivist.
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES. I saw documents bundled in reddish cardboard, tied with ribbon, including one that read SOCIETY OF THE NEW CHURCH, SIGNIFIED BY THE NEW JERUSALEM. One box, at the center, was filled with that very old handwritten material. I saw some sheet music, financial records, other stuff. One had a plastic drink cup tucked into it, almost surely ditched there a short time earlier by a pedestrian, but the rest of the contents were relatively undisturbed. I bent over to pick it up.Īs I did, I saw six or seven boxes of paper at the curb, spilling their contents. A piece of paper fluttered against my shoe, and the handwriting on it caught my gaze. It was chilly, and I had my face pulled down into my scarf, casting my eyes toward the pavement.
One morning last November, I was walking on East 35th Street, near Park Avenue.