Affect vs. Effect; Gibran not Kayyam.

Affect is an important word among the burgeoning world of the DSM4, (or is it 5?).  Whatever it is, one needs to be proficient. Affect is a verb, effect, usually, the noun. Though effect can be a verb, as in "if you are unable to effect a surprise it won't be a very good surprise party",  (I looked it up).  How it came up was that I was reading a little piece in a book about NYC and it's old buildings that were the scene of death and haunting and there was a chapter on The Tenth Street Studios, where my father had his studio during the years of my birth and early childhood, and where, across the street, at 14 West 10th, our little family then lived. And as I perused the short article and looked at the two pictures of the aforementioned buildings, I thought of the effect on my affect that that early location might have had on my bright little blank slate of a mind.

The book is Ghosts and Murders of Manhattan, part of the series Images of America published by Arcadia Publishing and written by Elise Gainer. The building 51 West 10th was built in 1857 by Richard Morris Hunt who had an architecture school there. Frederic Church and Winslow Homer showed paintings there. John LaFarge, painter, muralist and stained glass designer worked there, and his ghost was often seen walking through its walls after his death in 1910. In spite of LaFarge's frequent hauntings, in the 1940s a group of early modernists called the Bombshell Artists had their meetings there; Kahlil Gibran lived there from 1911 to 1931, and during my father's tenure, 1942 until some time in the 1950s, Phillip Guston had a studio there.

And across the street was my first home on this earth. Here the author of "Ghosts and Murders" refers to another author, Jan Bryant Bartell who wrote a book about that side of the street:

 

Author and actress Bartell wrote the book Spindrift: Spray From A Psychic Sea, detailing her many strange experiences while living on the beloved Tenth Street. Plagued by oppressive shadows, footsteps, the sound of breaking china, and repeated visits by the ghost she came to call "The Lady in White," Bartell left the [14 W..] neighborhood, only to return three and a half years later, moving into the house next door to where the frightening activity had occurred. Peace eluded her there as well when she became convinced the house was cursed after death had visited nine of the 10 families living there."

 

 

Bartell died shortly after leaving. Twenty years later, five year-old Lisa Steinberg died from physical abuse committed by her father,  Joel Steinberg and her mother Hedda Nusbaum, while living at 14 W. 10th.  I am, frankly, glad to have survived. 

  My mother, who never informed me about the ghosts, (unless I have forgotten), did tell me that there was a plaque on the front of the house saying that Mark Twain had lived there. Twain left after only one year, complaining that his wife couldn't keep up with all the housework. He did though confess that he'd once seen firewood moving around in the storage room of its own accord. As for myself, I have seen, or heard, or felt many creepy things, both flying through the air, and making strange noises after dark. All sorts of things have effected me to the point where I often appear to have a "flat affect".