Where Chuck Lives
I live in downtown Ipswich Massachusetts in the upper story of this house on the corner of Central Street and Hammatt Street (which the postman knows as 44 Central Street). This old house has been subdivided into four parts. Two are apartments, one is an office/studio, and one is a barber shop. Like many older buildings in Ipswich this follows the pattern of combined commercial/residential use, which is once again popular.
I really like the central location. From where I live I can walk to the post office, the bank, the shrink, the drug store, the doctor, the auto repair place, the library, town hall, the pub, the newsstand, a couple convenience marts, and several restaurants. I only get in my car to drive to the grocery store or the town's combined middle/high school. Downtown Ipswich is quite small. Most of the commercial establishments are around the single deeply shaded block. And the larger lightly shaded rectangle around which I used to walk most every day to get some exercise encompasses more than half of greater downtown.
I'm less enamored of the heat, although to date the location has more than balanced it. My apartment is on the top floor of this old house, and gets very hot on sunny summer days. The sun beats on the roof and heats the attic all day, then that heat radiates down through the ceiling into my apartment at night. (The temperature in my apartment is typically highest in the evening after dark!)
Whenever I've mentioned the heat problem to various people over the years, their response has always been the same: "just get a bigger air conditioner". I've been rather appalled that the universal response to doing something stupid is to just use more energy. Over these many years, not a single person has ever even mentioned thinking about whether such a use of air conditioning would be environmentally responsible (or even whether there might be other alternatives). Nor has anybody ever considered the idea that I might not be physically capable of sticking an air conditioner out the window without dropping it (I'm not). Nor has anybody ever considered that the electrical wiring in this old apartment might not be up to the load (given that everything except the kitchen is on just one circuit, it's probably not).
When the house isn't sited right or built right or insulated right, attempting to use air conditioning to compensate would just result in expensive electricity bills yet without lowering the temperature a whole lot. When there's a contest between the monster full sun and a brave little air conditioner, the sun will win every time. Homes that use air conditioners prudently put them in rooms that are already a bit cooler, not in the hottest room in the house; the same rule of thumb should apply here. Air conditioning may be a reasonable option for other parts of this building, but not for my apartment, since it was the hottest part of the old house before it was subdivided (i.e. the top floor).
A few years ago I hit on the idea of in summertime having a window fan blow hot air out of one of the attic windows. Even though it's not really a proper "exhaust" fan, it's made more difference in my heat problem than everything else put together.
If you want to come visit me either take the MBTA commuter line to Newburyport (not the one to Rockport which starts on the same tracks) and get off at Ipswich, or drive a car into Ipswich.
Front Door
If the barbershop is open or if I know you're coming or if you have a cellphone, enter the righthand door through the gate at the lower end of the wheelchair ramp (or telephone me). You'll find yourself in a small hallway with access to both parts of the barbershop and a carpeted flight of stairs. Go up those stairs. At the top the righthand door of the two is my apartment.
Back Door
If the front entrance is locked and you don't have a cellphone (there's no doorbell), an alternative is to walk around to the back of the house. Walk on the sidewalk to the corner, then turn down Hammatt Street a bit. You'll come to an open place where a few cars can be parked, between this building and the next building (which is off-white). Turn off the sidewalk into this open space to view the back side of the house. On the left of the back of the house you'll see a very tall set of unpainted stairs. Walk all the way up both flights (note though that if the stairs are roped off, they're unsafe and you shouldn't go this way). The only door at the top is my apartment.