Word: mansion
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Something decidedly odd is going on at the old mansion. The crackle of splintering wood emanates from the broken windows. A bathroom sink of heroic proportions has been plunked down on the overgrown lawn, and a man is chipping at a graffiti-painted wall with hammer and chisel. "Alllll right! " he says with a smile. "This stone is so wet it's going to come right off with a jackhammer...
...suspicious New York City residents, the activity in Far Rockaway, a seaside community of modest homes near the city's John F. Kennedy Airport, may look like a felony in progress. But no need to call the police: the disheveled mansion is scheduled for authorized demolition. Before the bulldozers are due to arrive, Stephen Israel, an ex-hippie entrepreneur with a Grateful Dead- style beard and twinkling brown eyes that focus on the minutiae of history, has come to salvage pieces of the past: window frames, carved moldings, gargoyles and anything else of architectural interest that can be pried loose...
Built around 1907, the Tudor-Gothic mansion was a fine example of careful stonework and superbly finished interiors, set down on a luxuriant plot of waterfront lawn on Jamaica Bay. It began as a residence for Henry Heinschiemer, an eccentric New York banker whose security system included a sign that read, GENTLE STRANGER TURN BACK. When the age of grand living had passed it by, the big home became a hospital for joint diseases, then a private school for retarded children and later a rabbinical school. Now it is a bag lady of a building. A fire has destroyed much...
After the mansion is razed, the property will become a municipal park. Says Israel, waving his chisel to emphasize the point: "The preservationists get upset when old places like this are plowed under. We come in and save what we can. All of this stuff will have a new life. It'll be reused in restaurants, offices and private homes...
...ache in the reader's gut. Francis was drab and cramped on the outside, that husk of a booze-wracked body, but he didn't live there. He came to life inside, with way too many other people -- the loves, enemies and chances he had lost -- in the decaying mansion of his memories. What a lovely movie might dwell there...