In a message dated 10/18/00 9:49:59 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:

> A Mongo Story-

Is it possible that Mongo refers not just to precious metals, but to other
material?  Twenty years ago, my wife and I -- under threat of eviction --
lucked into a big apartment at 90th & Broadway (1909, Neville & Bagge).  I
remember the super called up (in response to a flyer offering $500 for an
apartment lead) and said, in broken Croatian, "well, there is apartment here,
but maybe too big for just you and wife".  I choked and said I thought I
hadn't heard right, but he replied "yes, might be too big, big - it 4
bedrooms - maybe too big -- also, very expensive, $441".  I assured him that
we were expected a pair of triplets in a week or two, and we could probably
afford $441 for 9 rooms - which was less than we were paying for 3 rooms.

There is a long preservation story attached to the rest of the apartment -
for instance, that although Zip-Strip is non-flammable, the softened paint is
very flammable - but, before we knew any of this, we had to get rid of the
only bad part of the apartment.  This was a multi-level, carpeted
"environment" which the prior-shrink-renter had installed in 1974 in the
living room, no doubt for pot-soaked "happenings".  Of course, the
shag-carpet-stadium effect did not match our own emerging ideas about
restoring a 1909 "parlor", and so I advertised for anyone who wanted to take
the lumber.

I got only one call, from a slightly flaky sounding theater company which
needed the wood.   They proceeded to disassemble the "environment", but they
left as soon as they had gotten all the 2x4's longer than six feet - leaving
us with a shipwreck of lumber and carpeting.

How do you sue someone for not taking all the free stuff they said they
wanted?   In the large scheme of things, it wasn't a big deal, because two
years later we cooped the building, and sold the apartment for $285,000.

Sign me,   I Hear That The Same Apartments Now Sell for $1 Million