Real Estate. These two simple words have taken a black eye of late, what with the mortgage meltdown (that wrecked the American economy) bringing out its sleazier side. As a poorly paid English Professor, who recently got a real estate license due to economic necessity, the adjustment to my new field—from the groves of academe—hasn’t always been smooth. To put it bluntly, it’s not easy to transition from the ethereal world of getting young people excited about poetry and literature to an often ruthless, carnival barker-ish, “have I got a deal for you” profession that, in the general public’s mind, puts real estate agents a hair above used car salesmen in the ethical food chain.
Enter the Hoboken House Tour, to cure my real estate blues! Sponsored by Bob Foster and the Hoboken Museum, each Fall roughly a dozen Hoboken homeowners—of the more high end, luxury properties: the kind peasants like me dream of owning one day!—open their doors to allow the curious public a peek. As an educator with an interest in aesthetics and the transfromative power of art, as my eyes delighted in the wondrous facade of a Garden Street brownstone, or took in the breathtaking sweep of Manhattan’s skyline from a waterfront condo, I experienced an epiphany.
Real estate itself is, in fact, an art.
Though I’ve yet to master the technical jargon of my new field, and terms such as “square-footage” and “granite top counters” don’t roll off my tongue as smoothly as they do a more experienced agent’s, I did pay attention to the titles of books people had on their shelves. Tempering my fears about the philistine “Hoboken Yuppie,” I was thrilled to discover (on my very first bookshelf glance of the tour) Thoreau’s Walden. Since Thoreau was a nature lover (and so am I) this reinforced my sense of wonder at the paradisiacal green “urban oasis” backyards I saw that day. And my awestruck pondering of a brilliant orange oak on the corner of 11th and Bloomfield—on a crisp October morning, as the sun shimmered magically through its leaves—made me realize that part of the joy of the house tour is the random sidewalk amble, which startled me into a newfound awareness of Hoboken’s outdoor beauty.
One home had its bathrooms marked with vintage “Mens” and “Ladies” room signs, that looked re-cycled from a 1950s gas station—a great example of nostalgic kitsch art. Another displayed a bumper sticker that read “I Love Bhutan: Gross National Happiness.” Bhutan is a tiny kingdom in Indonesia that, alone among nations, measures the success of its country not in dollars and cents, but in how happy its citizens are. In 2005, the NY Times ran an opinion essay that suggested America could learn a thing or two from Bhutan. I’ve been using this piece as curriculum in my English classes ever since, arousing students to ponder a more just and equitable social order. My discovery of this bumper sticker in an aristocratic-looking Hoboken brownstone comforted me (in an age of greed) with the reassurance that some of our nation’s gentry are actually evolved, intellectual, and forward thinking.
Speaking of happiness, as a social person, conversing with my fellow humans often makes me happy. Another fringe benefit of the HHT is that it allows many opportunities to connect with people. Chatting with the homeowners, I even stumbled onto some unexpected Frank Sinatra lore. Claire Bogdanos, a born and raised Hobokenite who lives at the former Union Club (where Old Blue Eyes once performed, now converted into an urban nest of luxury condos) delighted a bunch of us with a tale of her double date with Sinatra and Ava Gardner—at Manhattan’s famed Embers Restaurant. Because Frank and Ava were in midst of one of their infamous quarrels that night, Claire said her most vivid memory of the dinner was the incredible amount of tension at the table! Eureka: I had struck Hoboken Story Gold!
As I continued to chat with Claire (who once owned over 30 properties in town) I learned that she’s also a poet. She even gave me a copy of her 1980 book: Changing Tempest and Other Poems. As a real estate agent/ English professor, I had at last come full-circle! Her poem “My Need” contains the lines “There is adventure that I must dare/ There are hopes which I must share.” My hope, bolstered by the 2010 Hoboken House Tour, is that my newfound adventure with real estate can—to compensate for the profession’s more banal elements—be a marvelous aesthetic and social journey as well.
If you have stories from the Hoboken House Tour, feel free to share them with me.
Reactions to this essay are also welcome at jfbredin@hotmail.com.