what you get for $300/month

03/22/2001 -- our zen community is looking for a home. i was glancing through a list of places for rent and came across a 5 bedroom, 2 bath house renting for $300. there's no way i could resist finding out what that was all about.

so i went and found it. here's what $300/month gets you in the way of a house. :)

you want work practice? we've got work practice.

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looking up.

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walking around the side. all the ground floor windows are boarded up, so i couldn't see what's inside. i'm picturing an empty shell over a flooded basement.

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from the back.

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the backyard.

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more of the backyard.

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looking across the front porch. i have a strong instinct that there should be a couple more pillars there.

next door, you can see...

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... 500e, which would itself make an interesting zendo, being all open space inside and with plastic walls letting in lots of light. but no sign that this is available.

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this certainly looks non-handicapped-accessible at first glance. however...

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... if you walk down this path from the backyard, you come to...

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this parking lot, which connects to the next street up and appears to serve the whole 500 complex. there are at least 3 houses in the group -- 500 (on the left here), 500e (to the left of where i was standing), and 500-1/2 (behind me and to my left). i didn't check the house on the right here, but it may be part of it as well. they all seem to be owned by someone with an artistic bent. that's a sculpture at the other end of the lot, and there was another like it leaning against the back of 500e, which appears to be a workshop.

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here's the front of 500 (also/actually 4201 greenmount). edgar allan poe couldn't have done it better. it even has the right history -- the stained glass over the door says "moran funeral home".

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another sculpture, looking out from the corner of greenmount and 42nd.

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the back side of 500. the plastic theme continues.

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quite a cool set of covered steps leading up to 500 and 500e.

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