Entertainment
She’s Raising Her Daughter in Her Own Childhood Apartment
It took a ruling from New York State’s highest court, and a critical renovation of the building, to make a dream come true.
One of Tarajia Morrell’s earliest childhood memories is walking through her family’s apartment with a plate of food in one hand and ironed napkins in the other.
“From the moment I could walk in a relatively stable way, I was passing hors d’oeuvres,” she said. “My mother would tell me what I was serving and I would go up to a guest and say, ‘Would you care for an endive leaf with boursin?’ You know, something totally ridiculous.”
That smaller version of her did not know that decades later, Ms. Morrell would fight all the way to New York State’s highest court to stay in the same apartment.
Notwithstanding the sophistication of her parents’ dinner parties, the home is an idiosyncratic one-bedroom. “It’s such a special, quirky-as-can-be, meek, asymmetrical, magnificent place,” Ms. Morrell said. “It’s not huge. It has one bathroom, and to get to the bathroom I had to walk through my parents’ bedroom.”
