Up on the roof: The only place in New York we can feel normal – if only for a moment

There are plenty of disadvantages to New York City real estate, as any smug upstate convert (America’s answer to home county types who “could never live in London”) will tell you. The prices are high (a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn for less than $2,200 per month? Impossible), the square footage is low (having a kitchen is seen as a bonus; bathtubs belong to rich people on the Upper East Side only); and the landlords are often mysterious and underhanded (our last landlord evicted us early for no reason; our new one hasn’t revealed his name and asks for the rent to be paid by cheque and deposited into a PO box).

Yet there are some huge upsides to New York real estate as well. For one thing, you get to live in the greatest city in the world, in one of five unique and cosmopolitan boroughs (well, four, Staten Island doesn’t really count.) For another, you’re likely to have some kind of outdoor space – even if you don’t realise it at first. If you don’t have a balcony, a roof or a stoop, do you even really live in NYC? I doubt it.

If you’re wondering which of the three I have, it’s a rooftop. Five floors above us, the flat metal ceiling of our apartment complex is fully accessible and downright pleasant if you take up a couple of folding chairs. From up there, there’s a good view of the surrounding parts of Brooklyn and even part of Manhattan is visible, including the Chrysler Building and the very tip of the Empire State Building, which flashes red these days in support of essential workers during the coronavirus pandemic.

A couple of days ago, in an effort to make something of our Saturday night on a week when we had to cancel our wedding, we decided to take advantage of that rooftop. We ordered a takeaway from one of the nicest restaurants in the area (one which previously never would have done takeout, but in these times has become creative) and I went to the end of the street to buy a bottle of wine through the window of a cocktail bar which now sells off its stock through the hatch.

With a small amount of struggling, we got our foldable dining table into the lift along with two wooden chairs. We did a couple of trips to get our cutlery up there as well, and we both dressed up as if we were going to a restaurant. When the sea bass and pasta arrived, complete with its own additional bag of homemade bread for dipping in olive oil, we took it upstairs and set it out on the table in time for a magnificent sunset. It was the hottest day of the year, perfect for a dinner under the stars.

There are 21 other apartments in our building, but luckily nobody seemed to have had the same idea as us. For a brief moment, without masks tied securely to our faces, we were allowed to dine in the fresh air with food someone else had made and pretend we’d scored the best seat in the house at a restaurant nearby.