My first home as a student at the University of Texas in Austin.

For $40.00 a month plus utilities I got what was basically a single room in a prime location with a separate full bath and a kitchen so cramped that it felt like it had been installed where once there was a walk-in closet. What I mean by prime location is that it was directly behind the once-renowned Tower Drug Store which fronted on San Jacinto Blvd. immediately opposite the main UT campus.

In ’68, it was what we’d call in contemporary real estate parlance a total tear-down. But it seems what was once a roach-infested 4-unit apartment building is now perhaps a single family home. The two decks in the back that weren’t there in ’68, however, so I’m not sure of that.

From the outside, the upper story is as it was when I lived there. But the first floor is not the same at all.

On the left side of the building, what was my kitchen window is still in place, but a second and identical window between there and the front left corner has been covered over.

On the front, the entrance is where my only front window was and there’s a double window where my door was. To the right of and slightly above that double window there’s an exterior light fixture below which there used to be an open stairway leading to the two upstairs units. Also,the door to the second first floor unit which was just to the right of that stairway has been covered over and the single front window has been replaced by a double.

11/29/14