In which are the insulai of Philippi

Until I was 10 I lived in Brooklyn.

We lived in a brownstone apartment like everybody else. The apartments lined the streets wall to wall. Some had pizza parlors on the 1st floor, or a vegetable store, a butcher, or some other shop. But above them – all apartments.

Each city block was a rectangle ringed with the apartment buildings. The area on the inside of those blocks was  a place for laundry to be hung, or balls to get lost.

Everything was about “the block”. Everybody on “the block” knew “Franky boy” or “Big Al” “or “Mikey’s Rochelle” or even “Mary’s Craig”.

It was all blue collar back then.

Things have changed.

Somewhere along the line Brooklyn became trendy and rich people bought all the buildings, and the poor people skidaddled.

Philippi was like that.

The Romans conquered, then moved out the hoi polloi – and moved in.  All the poor were pushed to the south of the city – huddled together like sardines.

Philippian sardines.

The apartments in the Roman Empire were called “insulae”.

One was called an “insula”.

The first floor, facing the street, probably would be a shop of some sort. Just like Brooklyn except no dry cleaning or pizza. If you were a shop owner in Philippi, you’d work all day in your bakery, vegetable store, or restaurant. Your “home” would be a tiny apartment just above the store.

Sometimes a rich family would own some of the better buildings.

They’d live on the first floor, and rent the space above.

The insulai of Philippi came in rectangles, just like Brooklyn. Except, where in Brooklyn, you could shout across alleys to your neighbors. In Philippi you could reach across the alley between the buildings, and actually hand something off to your neighbor.

In the middle of the rectangles there was a small area. If a rich family lived on the first floor this would be their private courtyard. If the whole building were rented, this area would be shared by everybody.

But with the buildings being stories high the small courtyard would be nothing more than a light well.

The second floor housed the ‘luxury apartments’.

These might have as much as 200 square feet apiece. For those of us who don’t think in square, that would be four rooms about six feet by ten feet in size.

But those were the big ones.

Everyone else would be able to claim a single six by six foot room. Larger families, made up of maybe a father, mother, 6 children, and grandparents, might rent two or three of these.

There would be no running water,

no direct sunlight,

no heat for cold nights,

and no breeze during the hot day.

Each morning you would haul water back from the public fountains outside.

If you were lucky you might have a water cistern in the courtyard below.

Either way,

every day would consist of trips to fill up jars,

and then carry the heavy load back to the apartment,

and up dark, dirty, dangerous, and creaky stairs,

where you would squeeze in,

with the rest of the sardines.

Tagged as: Philippi