I’ve had a lot of bad things happen in my life—but also so many good. I’ve visited places I never want to remember and others I’ll never forget. 

My first trip to the Circus Circus Hotel in Las Vegas? Unforgettable. A hotel with an indoor circus? For a kid, that was magic. And my grandfather’s backyard in the Dominican Republic, full of sugarcane and mango trees, is another place I’ll always remember. He’d make me fruit salad fit for a queen—or, as he used to call me, “his little princess.”

But my favorite place of all? Living En El Building in New York. It holds the soundtrack of my childhood—filled with scraped knees, window-to-window snowball fights, and forts made out of bedsheets and make-believe.

When we moved to New York from the Dominican Republic in 1982, everything was cold and unfamiliar. The neighborhood was rough, and the winters were longer than anything I’d ever known. But the building gave my parents security—and it gave us kids a whole universe.

El Building sits in the northern Manhattan neighborhood of Inwood. It rises six stories high, built from red and yellow brick, and was one of the cleanest on the block. For years, I swore there were two stone lions guarding the entrance—mothers watching over their cubs—but I’ve since learned there never were any lions at all. Maybe in my memory, I imagined them because that place always felt protected, like someone or something was watching over us. A few steps adjacent to the entrance led to what we called the courtyard, though it was really just a concrete terrace. Fire escapes zigzagged across the building like ladders, and inside the lobby was an ancient elevator that took three full minutes just to shut its doors. The entrance to the building was supported by a towering column that, to my eight-year-old eyes, held up the entire world.

My brother Gustavo, my little sister Sandy, and I—plus every other kid who lived there—turned the building, 5025 Broadway, into our kingdom. I learned to ride my bike in the lobby, pedaling around and around like I was training for the Tour de Lobby. The first time I tried skating in the courtyard, I face-planted so hard I still have the scar on my knee. On snow days, we’d yell to each other from our windows, pack snow from the sills, and hurl it at innocent people walking below.

Those long, narrow hallways? Our personal Olympic track. When I won a race, I was Florence Griffith Joyner, waving to my imaginary fans. We didn’t have much money, but we had imagination—and El Building gave it room to stretch.

One day we wanted to play jump rope but didn’t have one. So, I tied two of my dad’s bathrobe belts together. Boom: jump rope. It even worked for double dutch. We played for hours until my dad came home and realized his robe was naked. He grounded us for a week. 

Weekends were special. We turned our bedroom into a full-blown fortress. I used my Barbie sheets. Gustavo used his G.I. Joe ones. Our guards? A He-Man action figure and a couple of Cabbage Patch Kids. Lights off, flashlights under our chins, ghost stories flying. We scared ourselves silly.

The building still stands, and my aunt and cousins live there to this day. But the lions I remembered? They look like sleepy apartment house cats now. The lobby feels smaller every time I visit, and the elevator’s gotten even slower. On my last trip back, Mr. Martinez from across the hall saw me and squinted. “Oh yeah, I remember you. 2-K, right? You’re the one who pressed every elevator button. Took twenty minutes to get it back.”

I laughed. “Ah… I love this building.”

And I always will.

***

Perla Celeste Núñez is an Afro-Latina writer, born in the Dominican Republic. She loves bachata, bold earrings, flashlight ghost stories, and dancing in the kitchen.