b"What did you like best about your job?I liked talking to people in the morning. Like in Straus Houses, it was elderly tenants. They used to sometimes put aticket in when nothing really was wrong; they used to just want to talk to you.Come on, have a cup of coffee, sit down.Did you?Sometimes I sat down and had a little coffee with them. There was really nothing wrong. Well, it was stopped upbut I guess when you walk in here, you're the doctor, it happens to be fixed.They used to tell me stuff like that, but I loved it.Come upstairs I want you to have lunch for St. Patty's Day. So, I used to go up at twelve o'clock at lunch, whichI wasn't supposed to do. I used to go up and a lady had corned beef and cabbage for me. But I loved to talk to people andbe with people. I live across the street from the Project I retired from and I walk in the street and people still say: Howyou doing, Joe, how you doing, Joe. And I still talk to everybody, so you know, Ive seen kids this big, until they have kids that big.You actually live across the street from Straus Houses?Right across the street from Straus Houses, I live in Kips Bay. My terrace faces Second Avenue, the two buildings I took care of. But I've seen it change too. All the older people died from the neighborhood, it used to be my grandmotherlived there and my aunt lived in the other building. I grew up in that area over there. I really grew up in Smith Houses butI always stayed on 20th Street and First Avenue where my grandmother and my aunt used to live. I lived there and I grewup there in Smith right by the Brooklyn Bridge. They were tearing down all the old buildings over there in that neighbor-hood. They stuck all the old people into the buildings first. As I worked there, I saw the people die off. Now there's only ahandful left. I know the ones that are left, but that's it. I knew the whole building, 111 tenants in one building, and now,I maybe know ten. Things change. They used to line up in front of the building sitting there on beach chairs in the summer. I used to walk past: Hey, how you doing? They used to be sitting there having peanuts or having coffee orwhatever. Now one person sits in the sun, that's the last fella. That's all that's left out of maybe 15, 20 people who used to sit out there.Do you know anything about the new tenants? Are they different?Well, before, there was prejudice against black families. We only had six black families. They made something, DavisLaw or something, that people would be able to live there no matter what color. I said: Sounds good to me. But if theybring one person in, the person has maybe three kids, three different fathers. Then they start selling drugs out of thebuilding. Right now, in that building there, it's terrible. It was the best building, [now] its the worst. The Straus Houseswent downhill. I was able to lay on the bench over there if I wanted to sleep, I could lay down, go to sleep, I didn't have toworry about it. Now I have to worry about sitting there.Is this in Kips Bay?This is across the street. Mine is Kips Bay. It has security and is all locked up. This is right across the street, the StrausHouses74 "