We’ve been enduring pretty harsh weather these past few days here in St Louis. We’ve been buried under a foot of snow, which is really more than the city can handle. But even harder to face has been the extreme cold. Temperatures have been dropping down to around 5°F every day. Brr!
At first I ignored it, staying warm and snug inside. On day two I started digging out, clearing the steps and sidewalk. On day three, I turned my attention to the cars. We park on the street here. There’s room for a garage or parking lot in the back, but residents always vote in favor of keeping the big yard. In summer months we have a pretty good yard for gardening. The tradeoff for that is that our cars sometimes get buried in snow. And when the plow comes by, they REALLY get buried in snow.
I dug out my car, and then I found myself working on my neighbor’s car. Then the next one. I mean the people I share a building with. My Neighbors.
Shoveling snow when you don’t have anywhere urgent to be is meditative. I fell into a philosophical frame of mind, thinking about what it means to be a neighbor in this building compared to other places I’ve lived. We’re just regular people here, same as anywhere else. We mind our own business and go about our own lives—the typical “urban etiquette” of city life. But there’s something different here that I haven’t experienced elsewhere. In this building, we look out for each other.
I don’t want to spin some romantic fantasy. I know the people here are tenants paying rent, and I’m the landlord collecting it. When problems come up, I have to deal with them. And when tenants want to, they move out. But they don’t move out very often. I think there is something special about this place. Over the past 136 years, people have chosen to stay here for long stretches of time. I think this might be unusual in a rental property.
Five families who have had a lengthy presence here. This graphic shows the approximate timeline for when they were here.
The Rohde and Hartoebben families were building owners. They were neighbors here for decades. Siebeneicher was another long-term family. US Census records show the Siebeneichers were already here in 1910; we aren’t sure when they moved in. Same with the Suhre and Heinen families. Census records place them here in 1900 and in 1910, but we don’t have info on when they first appeared or when they left. We’re still filling in the gaps.
Thinking back on the families who lived here, I wonder if they had the same ideas about what it meant to be a neighbor. They lived side by side for a long time. Kids growing up together, people growing old and dying. Lots of shared experiences. Would they have rescued their neighbor’s car from a snow bank? I think they would have.
I don’t know exactly what makes this place different. One thought: we don’t just live near each other; we live with each other. Is that too ridiculous of a statement? In the suburbs, distance is the default. You have your own half-acre, your own snowblower, your own fortress. You drive your own car everywhere. “Sharing” is practically a swear word. You can be perfectly “decent” to the person next door without ever actually interacting with them. Here, in our 1890s building, we’re close. We share walls. You look out for each other because, literally, what happens to your neighbor’s side of the building happens to yours.
Maybe it’s just that this building has always been owner-occupied. As an owner, I definitely care about what happens to this place. All the previous owners lived here too. No absentee landlords or property management companies. Maybe an owner-occupied building encourages a sense of decorum and care in its residents. Or maybe when an owner lives in their building, they’re just careful about who they rent to because they don’t want to live next to jerks.
Sometimes I don’t feel like the owner, more like just the latest steward. This place was here long before I came along, and it will be here long after I’m gone. Maybe that sense of stewardship is shared by the other residents to some degree.
The old St Agnes church, across the street. The towers don’t mind the snow.
So, my mind wanders while I shovel snow. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Whatever the reasons, I dug out my neighbor’s cars yesterday. That’s how neighbors are in this building.
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