You can search "BINT" on this blog and find many a post dealing with my recollections of yesteryear...precisely the years 1992 or 1993. That's what BINT stands for...Back In Ninety-Two, or, Back In Ninety-Three. These were the years I look back on, time and time again, as my best-self years. I kicked the Ol' Georgie habit, got fit, took up active and interactive hobbies, socialized a-plenty, had many romantic (or lust-mantic) hookups, and sought to better my overall mental health by minimizing stress, fessing up to responsibilities, re-examining priorities and embracing positivity. They were my halcyon years.
During those years, I lived with my best bud Wayne in a two bedroom tenement apartment in the North End of Providence, Rhode Island. While I no longer have any photos of that place, other than here where my drag queen persona Mildred Claus is hamming it up for the photoshoot, there's always the magic of the internet...
I literally woke up in the middle of the night last night straining to remember what the last name of my then-landlord Dan was. The urge to find out was too strong to dismiss so I got up and went to Google. All I could think to look up was my old address, the three story house he owned. I wasn't too hopeful as I knew from memory that he transferred the house to his ex-wife as per the divorce settlement with her back in 1997 so what record of his (or her) ownership would there be? Sure enough, couldn't find squat.
But I did discover that the house recently sold. It looks like it sold in 2002 (probably from Mrs. Dan), then again a year later and yet again just this year. Dan tried to sell me this house back around '95 or so for about $110K...it sold this past spring for $450K.
Inflation aside, I think that's a bit high. This wasn't (and I suspect it still isn't) the best neighborhood. I got broken into twice when I lived there, the only time I've ever been so assailed and/or robbed.
That bump aside, memories of Rosebank are mostly really good. I really hated giving it up due to encroaching bills getting outta hand and perhaps a feeling of malaise and loneliness. It was a bit lonely living here after Wayne left. I was too young then to be the hermit I am today.
Here's what I want to show though: Recent pics of the apartment...
Gone are the walls I built separating the living/dining room with then-fashionable half-drywall, glass-brick-accented dividers harkening back to the 20s when this house was first built with similar partial wall dividers of the room. The open floor plan is too much king these days for that. Plus, glass bricks are decidedly left in the nineties, so I guess it's no surprise. (Not to mention they were amateur walls and probably would not have made any code whatsoever in heavily-building-code-ruled RI.)
Most everything else is the same...the wainscoting woodwork in the kitchen, the counter peninsula, even the appliances! My God, the dishwasher and stove shown are the same ones that we had in 1992! And they may have been a couple years old then as Dan was the scratch-and-dent kind of landlord. But at least the style back then didn't look as dated as they do now. And how do they function...after 30 years of use?!
BTW, my search also discovered that this apartment is currently available to rent from these new owners. Only $850 a month. For two bedrooms! I was paying $550 a month back in the early nineties! (Minus $50/mo. for that hole in the bathroom ceiling...ol' scratch-and-dent Dan was a bit lazy you know...) Here in Central Florida, an older two bedroom apartment in a slightly sketchy area would still go for at least $1,500 a month!
And I moved down here for the "lower" cost of living. My how time changes things in so many ways.