Monday, 07 March 2005 | Real estate

"A man died in my building," K. told us. That morning she'd opened the door to her sixth-floor apartment, and was smacked with a smell that her brain didn't recognize, but one that her body knew was gag-inducing. We crowded around her as she provided details. The body was three floors below.

She told us about the detective who joined her on the elevator, flashing his badge and asking where he could find the super. At this point I interrupted her. "Wait. You have an elevator?" She digressed, sharing my disbelief and commenting on her building's central air and central heating (other anomalies in New York apartment buildings).

(Later on, when our coworker showed us the porch swing she'd purchased at lunch, K. and I responded in the same fashion, simultaneously asking, "You have a porch?" Our coworker quickly reassured us that she only had a dirty roof and a fire escape, a response that [for some reason] gave us obvious relief.)

The man from the third floor had been in his sixties, K. learned, and had lived in the building for thirty years. He'd been an alcoholic and a heavy smoker; sometimes the super would find him slumped on the stairwell and would help him inside. A long time ago, the man used to be a gym teacher.

There doesn't seem to be much else, apart from these details. He'd been dead for a week before anyone noticed.