Mennos in the City

This week I got some unexpected news. I was offered a room at Menno House to live for the next year. Menno House is a brownstone in Gramercy that houses people who are doing Mennonite Voluntary Service (sort of like the Mennonite version of Americorps), other volunteers and low-income do-gooders, and a couple of lucky people who aren’t saving the world but sneak in anyway. The place is nice and the rent is ridiculously cheap for Manhattan. It will be community living--shared kitchen, living room, and bathrooms--but that appeals to me. John and I have been getting along great, but I do feel sort of isolated in Park Slope. If I want to go out or spend time with people it has to be a planned event and requires a 40 minute ride into the city. Living with a bunch of people certainly has downsides, but I lived in a 10 person house in college, and it was a blast (Yeah Foster House!!). Plus, I’m excited to live in Manhattan and have the serious city living experience.

Once I decided to accept the room, I spent some time exploring the Menno House website. It was awesome. Specifically, it has surprisingly in-depth information about the house’s history. The building itself was built in 1851, which is fun because that year has another cool historical association (gold star to any non-MOHAI person who knows). Then, there is this picture:

The Mennonites apparently moved in during the 1950s. The house was used as a lodging place for conscientious objectors (and their wives) who were coming to the city to fulfill their alternate service requirement. Sadly, plain dress and bonnets are no longer required. I sort of wish they were. My life could turn into some straight-to-DVD movie. Clara is a good Mennonite at home BUT on the walk to work she pulls off her cotton sack dress to reveal sassy, modern clothing! Instead of spending her days picking lice off of orphans, she is studying fashion! Hilarity ensues when she forgets to take off her bonnet before class and her housemates get suspicious when they catch a glimpse of pink under her hem!

Farther down on the history page is an article about the house from a 1966 Mennonite magazine. It starts like this:

New York City--center of world trade, skyscrapers, riots, United Nations and eight million people--was virtually unknown to Mennonites in the past. It was a huge city that was far enough away from our Mennonite communities that it did not pose a great threat to us. It was a place where we occasionally went to see missionaries off to some foreign land, a place we passed through en route to the New England States, or a place where a few daring tourists "saw the town."

Wow. ...pose a great threat...a few daring tourists... Where else would someone list the top 5 New York identifiers and include “riots”?

But sadly, things have changed. The Menno House I will be living in will be tragically in step with the times. It will probably look more like this:

Tsk tsk.

(Move in date is September 1st)