My Celebrity Neighbor’s Brooklyn Home Features Pandemic Poetry

As the COVID-19 pandemic brought New York City to a near standstill three months ago, my world, like that of many of my neighbors in Brooklyn, shrank to the several walls of my apartment and about as many blocks.

On the days when the weather cooperated — when it was nice enough to be outdoors, but not so springlike that I worried about socially distancing from throngs of people also trying to cure their cabin fever — my husband and I enjoyed taking long walks, admiring the area’s architecture. We had moved to Ditmas Park, a leafy suburb-in-the-city, in 2016, and part of what drew us here was the abundance of grand turn-of-the-last-century Colonials, turreted Queen Anne homes and charming bungalows.

The architecture doesn’t get any more impressive than it does on Albemarle Road, in what’s officially known as Prospect Park South. In 2015, a year before we made the move to Brooklyn, actress Michelle Williams purchased an iconic eight-bedroom Colonial Revival home here with fluted Ionic columns that had been listed for $2.45 million, and set about making extensive renovations.

During our pandemic walks, my husband and I discovered that not only had Williams replaced the dark asphalt shingles with bright clapboard siding, but that she — or whoever has been living in the home these last few months — has been placing sandwich boards of poetry at the foot of the walkway for neighbors to enjoy.

The poems, which appeared to be selected to fit the mood of the day, have stopped me in my tracks and prompted me to think metaphorically about the surreal situation we’ve found ourselves in.

The first one we encountered at the end of April was Keeping Things Whole by Mark Strand, in which the author expresses his desire for wholeness in a fragmented world.

On May 24, there was Things by Lisel Mueller, which references our propensity to apply human characteristics to everyday objects, giving us a feeling of familiarity amidst uncertainty.

Two weeks ago, as grief and anger over the death of George Floyd and too many other black lives compelled people here, and across the country, to fill the streets demanding change, the sandwich board held more concrete commentary. Ross Gay’s A Small Needful Fact referenced the parallel fate of our fellow New Yorker, Eric Garner, after an NYPD officer put him in a chokehold. Gay’s poem branches off of Garner’s work as a horticulturist at the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

Also over the last few weeks, nearby apartment dwellers have used the street’s wide grassy median to relax in the sun, with one homeowner even encouraging neighbors to spread out on their lawn.

Poetry is certainly no cure for a pandemic, let alone for the disease of systemic racism that’s been circulating for centuries, but the use of real estate to provide a much-needed escape from our daily anxieties has been a balm, and has only cemented the reasons why I decided to put down roots here.