APARTMENT LOBBIES

1. Every day from third to sixth grade, I walked with my dad to school. We would walk up West End, a mostly residential block, to avoid the early morning bustle of Broadway. Every day, we would switch the side of the street that we would walk on. And every day, our heads would peep around the corner of each lobby entrance. We were the master lobby inspectors. My brother would walk with us too, although he didn’t take much stock in lobby dissecting. He wanted my dad to tell stories about two siblings who were fairies who were going to save the world. I liked these stories too, but they would pause when we got to a building entrance. Each lobby was a must-see. Except, of course, for the lobbies that we hated. Those, we could just skip over. We knew what we liked and didn’t like.

2. The lobbies were judged loosely on the following criteria: whether or not it had some type of wood or wood paneling, if the lighting fixtures were beautiful chandeliers or flickering fluorescent bulbs, where the elevator was and what the outside of it looked like (bonus points if it looked brass, and negative points if it been poorly painted over), and where or if there was seating and/or a doorman. A lobby’s value would automatically skyrocket if there was stained glass. This list was not official, although it was inherently assumed to be our basis for inspection—some unspoken agreement I had with my father about our similar aesthetic tastes. We appreciated a sort of refined magnificence. Historic architecture, but in limited quantities. None of the sporadic bursts of vaguely Greek Corinthian columns. A few were nice, sure, but it was all about intentionality. A space’s design had to flow well.

3. Now, you may be thinking that we only liked the grandest, most opulent lobbies, the ones where the extremely wealthy lived. And to be fair, living on West End on the Upper West Side in New York City is a typical marker of some kind of wealth. But, in reality, I spied some nice interiors in the buildings with only buzzers at the doors and no elevator. What I was really searching and yearning for was the undefinable characteristic of class. In fact, I remember a specific building only a block away from my house. The interior, while marbled, was rather garish and seemed to have been transported there from another time. It was always under construction, to start, and the marble was almost too marbled so that it appeared dirty. Like I said, it’s all about balance. My father and I typically gave that one a five out of ten.

4. It’s pretty normal for kids to have obsessions. And, for most kids, that obsession usually centers around trains, or cars, or dolls. I’ve never actually met anyone who was obsessed with apartment lobbies. So, let’s see if we can get to the root of this obsession. To start, I’ve always had a very clear idea of what kind of interior design I liked. There were certain things I always hated, like modern, minimalist furniture and houses with no character. The physical attributes of a space have always been important to me, and luckily my tastes align with my dad. Second, all of my friends lived in an apartment or brownstone that possessed architectural grandeur in some way. I knew some of my friends’ doormans, knew how to walk to my friends’ brownstones. And, living on the Upper West Side, the majority of buildings were elegant pre war apartments. At least the ones my friends lived in. So to be fair, this obsession probably stemmed in part from the lifestyle my friends led and the one I did not.

5. But I wonder what it was specifically about lobbies that so captured my little brain. Board and Vellum, a supposedly elite architectural something or other, says this: “Maybe you’ve lived in plenty of modern apartment buildings before. Some of them perhaps had small, sad, “token” lobbies: those are almost worse than none at all. Some lobbies are big and opulent, but thoughtless, which makes them feel vacant and dead. How does a big lobby with its sprawling, plush lounge give you such a sense of serenity and relief when you came home? How does it succeed where so many others fail?”

See, I knew class was important. And for some reason, it was incredibly important to me from ages 9-12. When I would go to my friends’ houses for playdates, I would inspect their lobbies carefully upon entry. I scoped out the doorman and the little desk he stood behind. I peered around the corners to where the mail rooms were. I looked at the buttons in the elevator. Then, I would chatter about it to my dad the next day when we walked to school.

6. Let’s say you go and visit your friend’s apartment for the first time. And you don’t live in the city. Your friend’s building is beautiful on the outside, maybe white or red brick, with arched windows and a nice awning. But you walk inside, and it’s just an empty room with the door at one end and the elevator at the other. There is a faint hum emitted by the flickering fluorescent bulb. It doesn’t really matter if your friend’s apartment is nice, right? You’ll still notice the lobby.

7. Lobbies present gateways, openings to a world. If you live in a building with a lobby, it serves as the comforting, warm, and inviting space you retire to after a long day. The lobby is the entrance to that comfort. You smile and nod and say thank you to the doorman and walk to the elevator. A lobby is almost removed from the outside world; entering the door means leaving one world behind and entering your home base. Lobbies are inherently nice because there is no real need for them. They are created as a sign of plushness, an added safety and comfort to your home. Entering the lobby brings relief—most people exhale when they get home and are able to inhabit their own space.

8. Realistically, I was probably just a weird child. The idea of “luxury” followed me around. I sort of conducted a similar study with cars when I was younger. Then, the criteria was typically the number of exhaust pipes and the possible presence of fake wood in the interior. I specifically wanted a silver Mercedes SUV, because my friend had one and I would travel in it when we drove up to her house (mansion) upstate. Which was on a lake. And had a dock. Also a pool. This always struck me as weird, because why would you want a pool if you already had a private lakefront? I suppose that is yet another sign of luxury, a sort of choose-your-own swimming environment.

9. I feel like at this point it’s probably important to note that my car had no fake wood in it and my house had no lobby. My house has a lot of character, but I didn’t really develop an appreciation for it until I traveled far away to boarding school. And I was always so focused on what I didn’t have that I never even acknowledged what I did have. I have a wonderful, charming house which was free because it came with my mom’s job, and the fact that most everything in the house is outdated and slightly broken only adds to its personality. And it’s sort of rare to have a car in New York, even though all of my friends had one. But, in elementary and middle school, I considered my house to be lame and kind of gross and generally subpar to the lobbies I walked past, especially because my friends lived in those buildings. There is a saying that goes, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” This is true, but what is more true is, “Lobbies with unmistakable class where your friends live and you don’t are the thief of even more joy.” Having a lobby and a doorman and the whole apartment experience is very quintessentially New York. My house was not quintessential to me.

10. Looking back on it now, it sometimes appears to me that I was in a constant state of mild crisis about fitting in for essentially my whole childhood. This is all very normal, but for some reason I remember feeling this very acutely. So to know all about these lobbies, to categorize and rate them in my mind, gave me a sneak peek into what living like my friends would be like. A lobby is the proverbial and literal gateway into a world, and so I made sure to know all of these gateways in case anyone cared to ask me (they usually didn’t). And so, I now know a weird amount about a 10-block stretch of a specific street in a specific city. So feel free to quiz me anytime. But I am glad that little fourth grader me is no longer preoccupied with comparing my living situation with that of my friends’.

I love my house, and I love apartment lobbies. Those things are not mutually exclusive.

Frannie Hinch is a high school senior who lives in New York City. She wrote this piece for a class, but when she's not in school she likes reading and watching movies.