nonetheless

“In 1940 they moved back to the city, and the place Pookie found for them was no ordinary apartment: it was a once-grand shabby old “floor through” on the south side of Washington Square, with big windows facing the park. It cost more than Pookie could afford, but she scrimped on other expenses; they bought no new clothes and ate a great deal of spaghetti. The kitchen and bathroom fixtures were rusty antiques, but the ceilings were uncommonly high and visitors never failed to remark that the place had “character”. It was on the ground floor, which meant that passengers on the double-decked Fifth Avenue buses could peer into it as they made their circuit of the park on the way uptown, and there seemed to be a certain amount of flair in this for Pookie”

~Richard Yates, The Easter Parade

(photo: Fifth Avenue Bus, Washington Square, Manhattan. (October 21, 1936) by Berenice Abbott)