A First Look

I've often described my first encounter with the Cornelia Street house as being like one of the opening scenes of "Titanic," where the remote-controlled submersible camera first enters the wreckage of the mighty ship. Deteriorated and corroded when it first appears on screen, the once-luxurious interiors soon dissolve back into their original splendor.

Similarly, when I stepped into the house, I could almost see through the drop ceilings, the linoleum tile, the cinder-block "patio," the crumbly, unvented bathrooms and the awfully partitioned basement.

The view from the upstairs kitchen window held so much promise as to what could be.