The parlor floor was the second floor. The floor with the tall windows. The floor the landlord showed first because it looked like money. The parlor floor had the highest ceiling in the building and the ceiling made you feel important and the feeling of importance cost ten dollars more a month.

The parlor floor had the best woodwork. The moldings. The rosettes. The plaster medallion on the ceiling where the chandelier was supposed to hang but nobody had a chandelier so it just hung there like a promise nobody kept. The medallion was the building's autobiography. It said someone once expected this room to hold something beautiful.

The floor was oak. The oak was under the linoleum and the linoleum was under the carpet and the carpet was under the kids and the kids did not care what was under them. But the oak was there. Tongue and groove. Laid by a man who knew what he was doing. The floor was the most permanent thing in the apartment. The tenants came and went. The linoleum came and went. The oak stayed.

My grandmother lived on the parlor floor. She got the parlor floor because she had been there since 1947 and the landlord could not move her and could not raise her rent and could not make her leave. So she sat in the parlor with the tall windows and the plaster medallion and paid rent that was locked in another decade. The parlor floor was her fortress. Rent control was the moat.

They renovated the parlor floor. They sanded the oak and sealed it and put in track lighting and called it a one-bedroom and charged four thousand dollars. The medallion is still there. The molding is still there. But the room has been emptied of everyone who knew what the room was for. The parlor was for sitting. For talking. For the window that went to the floor so you could watch the street. The parlor was the apartment's relationship with the outside. Now it is a bedroom with a good ceiling. The relationship is over.

See also: Linoleum, Stairwell