I'm Ada Limone and this is The Slowdown.

When I lived in the Green Point neighborhood of Brooklyn with my best friend Trish in the

early 2000s on Jewel Street, we were so happy to live together in a safe place that

we could pretty much most of the time afford that we thought our neighborhood tucked

in by the busy bee market and the laundromat that you could still smoke in was beautiful.

And it was, in a way, row houses with aluminum siding of different colors and a notary on

every corner.

With permission from our landlords, we painted the walls terracotta and then we filled

it with previously coveted furniture we'd pilfered for free from the street, like a sectioned

couch, one section fit perfectly in the corner of my room and another fit perfectly in her

room.

Trish played softball every Sunday in McCarran Park and we'd get beers and gin and tonics

to go and styrofoam cups and drink them on the park benches under the suffering trees.

I didn't play but the team anointed me as first Ada and once I even popped someone's

dislocated shoulder back in.

It was home.

It still feels like home when I go back to visit.

Once when I laid out a blanket for a picnic while she played second base for the turkeys

nest team, she came back to me to get some water and said, did you know this area was

a super fun site?

And I didn't know that.

This was due to the largest oil spill in US history occurring in nearby Newtown Creek.

...