Letters (Nov 14)

Dudster,
when we moved to your neighborhood in 1968 I thought our new home was so beautiful and modern, compared to the previous second floor apartment we had lived in. Well, because it was a house and it had a backyard.

All the houses on our street were the same except for the color of the decorative mosaics. Ours was turquoise blue, yours was yellow I think. They were built in rows of 4 or 5 attached one-story townhouses with flat roofs. The front doors would open into an alley and face the backyards of the next row. Yours was across from our front door. All backyards were divided by brick walls and all had a small rectangle mosaic lined pool, maybe 1 foot deep, perfect for a goldfish. (Once we had a goldfish in there but it committed suicide by getting tangled in a small piece of plastic that was floating in it.)

An iron staircase (same color as the mosaics) led up to the roof. That was our playground too. My dad had built a small playhouse for my sister and me, I guess out of old wooden boxes and we painted it in bright colors, we were so happy.

The roofs of our row of houses were connected and boundaries were only marked by a short concrete ledge that was easily surmounted. But we had to step lightly because the neighbors could hear us if we jumped or ran around.

Our complex, if you can call it that, ended at a large long wall that belonged to the Sheraton Hotel. So all of the rows of houses were lined on one side by the garden wall of the hotel. 

We often climbed over the roofs to the last house that was closest to the hotel wall and we would look into the grounds and watch hotel guests at the pool or the bar.

In the summer the hotel often hosted weddings and concerts on the weekends. We would jump the roofs to sit on the ledge of the hotel wall and listen to the music. 

Once they had set up BBQ grills right along the wall below us. Of course we had the brilliant idea that we could taste the wonderful kebabs that the cook was grilling. 

So, we got some of my mom's clothes-line, some clothes-pins and a few plastic bags and lowered them down. Then we coaxed the cook to hand us some food. We were about 6 kids up there and having a ball. He humored us and I am sure he could have gotten into lots of trouble.   

Well, I can't deny it that we were trouble.

Here is a Google Earth snapshot of that neighborhood. Unfortunately multiple stories have been added to the nice little one-story bungalow homes and many have been converted to businesses. Ours apparently has been an embassy for a while.