We knew our back yard was a bit of a mess. It was clear that when they were renovating the building adjacent to ours that they had just dumped a bunch of garbage in our back yard. We figured there was about a foot of garbage back there…

On top of that when a friend of ours (who does gardening for a living) saw the garden he said the plants that were going in it were rather insidious – that we should kill them with RoundUp and then put black plastic over the entire garden for a summer to try to kill them.

There’s so little in our place there aren’t many surprises, but it seems like every time there could be a surprise we’ve got one. The back yard isn’t going the way we thought it would… They’ve started removing the garbage – and surprise! There’s concrete under everything…

You can’t quite tell, but the retaining wall on the side has about 2 1/2 cinder blocks in it – so it’s about 20″ high (plus the cap stone). And most of the “debris” is actually mostly dirt and rocks. I still don’t know how we have so many river rocks in the middle of Harlem, but there they are.

Our plans just call for removing the debris. It doesn’t mention anything about removing concrete – so we’ll have to work that out with the contractor since we don’t want a concrete back yard! That said, we don’t have to worry about insidious plants growing in a concrete back yard…

The other question is how do we integrate those huge rocks into our landscape design? I was really thinking of going a different direction… But we’ll figure something out. Dan says we should look at Japanese garden designs.

The roof, while far from done, got put up Friday – well enough to stand on at least…

The next thing we have to figure out is whether the slope of the roof will be uncomfortable as a deck. It changes by about 7 inches every 10 feet. We could do three level areas with one step between each, or we could live with the slope. We went to Home Depot this afternoon and got some plastic lawn chairs and plan on sitting up there this weekend to see whether it bothers us. (Anyone want to join us for a beer on the roof?) If we want to do three level areas we’ll need to raise the railings a bit to compensate for the additional height.

The roof lets us get a peek at our view. While we’ve stood on the roof of the apartment building next door, we’ve never actually seen the view from our own roof until today. It’s a story lower than the apartment building, and the view isn’t quite as good – it’s a bit obstructed…

(Click picture to see bigger version).

We can see midtown a bit. Citicorp is visible, and from the right angle the top of Empire State is visible, but much of the Midtown view is obstructed by the apartment buildings on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. And being Harlem it’s off in the distance anyway. Here’s a blow up of the best part of the view…

(Click for bigger version).

I gotta say though… The fact that our view is so precarious makes me want the boundaries of the Mount Morris Park Landmark District expanded so our neighbors to the south can’t build up and block our view. Thing is, even if they’re landmarked they could still build up a little and block things for us – by adding a bulkhead like we’re doing…

Honestly though, the most interesting thing on the horizon we see when we turn around and look across and down the block a bit at The Greater Metropolitan Baptist Church (originally a German Lutheran church)…

The nicest part of the roof deck is that it’s less of a fish bowl than the back yard. There’s a bit more privacy than the back yard ’cause it can be seen by fewer windows…

As the floors have been going in we we’ve seen that there’s some pretty cool graffiti on the top floor. Well, the top floor is in, so we can finally get a good picture of it…

I’m not sure if the guy was named Scavenger or if he’s just identifying himself as a scavenger. And I don’t know whether it was some person or crew that went through abandoned buildings and salvaged original details or whether it was someone scavenging to support a drug habit (consistent with our house’s reputation back in the day). Either way, as graffiti goes – it’s pretty good.

I’d like to think some of the original details made their way to some place like Demolition Depot or into other Harlem townhouses rather than just being destroyed.

Unfortunately, we can’t save the graffiti – that wall is being insulated and sheetrocked. And honestly, it’s cool to see now, but I wouldn’t want to live with it.

Now that we’re up to the top floor, the next item on the agenda is taking off the roof. They were supposed to do it yesterday, but the weather was really bad. I can’t wait to take photos with no roof. But even more I can’t wait until I can get up to the roof. I want to see if we have a clear view of midtown Manhattan from what will be our roof deck.

Speaking of the roof… It’s amazing it’s still even still there. It was pretty badly burned in a fire in the late ’90s…

And here’s are some more gratuitous renovation shots…

This was two days ago as they were putting in the top floor…

And this is from this morning – I like the pattern of light on the wall from the old skylight opening…

It’s actually a bit spooky looking down all those flights of stairs to the parlor floor – and it will be even more so as the stairs go up to the roof – it’s over 40 feet down from the roof level to the parlor level. I got a little winded walking up to the top floor today – the house is going to keep me in shape