Many of my New York conversations are still in my head and I need to get them posted! The latest is with Trevor, the billion dollar apartment dresser. I have changed his name, in case his employer ever gets to read this.
Running on one side of Central Park, Manhattan, is 5th Avenue. This is said to be the world’s most expensive street where being an ordinary millionaire won’t get you very far when it comes to buying a nice apartment. It was there, just sitting on a bench under the shade of a tree that I got talking to Trevor.
Trevor was rolling up a cigarette. You don’t often see people smoking in NYC these days, let alone rolling tobacco into a paper with a definite, well-practiced skill. I could tell he was very adept at the task, he could do it on autopilot, just taking enough tobacco out of the plastic pouch and rolling it into the paper. Not too much, not too little, just enough for the bonfire slither he would puff away on.
Trevor was a scrawny man in his twenties. He wore a snug fitting leather jacket; the kind a biker might wear. He looked a little unkempt with his uneven, scruffy beard which I would say ranged in age from between a few days to a month or so, depending on whether it was on his left or right cheek, or on his chin. The ends of his fingers carried the stained clue of being a regular, unfiltered smoker. He had black, slightly faded jeans, again quite tight fitting and these completed the look.
We got talking. We exchanged pleasantries and I then went in directly, asking what line of work he was in. Just as soon as I had said that, I almost regretted it. Was he working? If not, was I being rude, nosey or condescending? If he was, what could he be? A celebrity? Maybe? A loaded philanthropist? Maybe? A city slicker on his day off? These were all vague maybes but each one was going to prove as being way off. I was a million miles off course. Perhaps even a billion miles.
Trevor told me he’d just finished work for the day. He had been “dressing an apartment”. This, he explained, is when one of the apartment owners moves out and puts it up for sale, they bring in real estate people to push the sale through. No right minded, well healed Fifth Avenue resident would allow the cameras in while your art and fancy furniture was still in-situ, let alone all your personal possessions. So you would have someone like Trevor come in with everything needed to make the empty shell look a billion dollars.
He would design “the look” to make it attractive to the right kind of buyer. He would import furniture, art, rugs, carpets, flowers and so on, just to make it look nice for the photographs and the potential buyers. He also told me how having plenty of money wasn’t always enough to have a prestigious apartment; the resident’s committee sometimes decides on who gets to move in, or something along those lines, as some celebrities can be more bother than they’re worth.
“So where do you live Trevor?”
Queens. Queens is across the East River, the most populated borough in New York State. He said he lives in a tiny apartment, completely at the other end of the scale. At one end of the scale you have Fifth Avenue, the other end is Queens and the tenement buildings in densely populated neighbourhoods where everyone rents.
Politics? Without any prompting on my part, Trevor said he was a socialist but kept his feelings to himself, probably wouldn’t do his career prospects much good if his views were known. In fact, as he put it, he was a radical socialist, far beyond what the Democrat Party would be.
We sat there, under the dappled shade and watched the world trundle by. There were tourists on foot with their selfie sticks. There were Manhattan joggers trotting passed, the occasional blue and white NYPD car meandering along with its strobe lights flashing away but in absolutely no rush. These Police cars, by the way, ranged from tiny two seater smart cars, through to huge SUVs which would dwarf a British Range Rover.
Then there were people like Trevor and myself. We both liked blending in, not standing out in the crowd. It’s fair to say he could pull it off a lot easier than me but he thought I did pretty well in my blue jeans, pierced ears and tee-shirt. He wasn’t so sure about my little rucksack, saying it was a tourist giveaway.
I said how we can all benefit from these fleeting conversations, two people from different countries, bumping into each other in such a random way. He agreed by saying how we can check each other and in doing so check ourselves. I asked what he meant. He told me that we can float ideas and see what comes back – that will work, no that won’t and so on. Getting a perspective from someone who lives on the other side of the world, in a different society can be really helpful in moderating some views, he said.
I couldn’t help but think there was so much sense going on behind that scruffy facade. He was working in one world that was a billion dollars away from his own and what was he learning? He was learning from those billionaires and learning from his neighbours in Queens. He as also so young, maybe young enough to be a revolutionary but old enough to be sensible.
I just wonder, if I were to stroll down Fifth Avenue in 20 years, would he still be working there?
