JULY 2 0 1 7 I BOROMAG.COM 47
table to rest your knife and fork on between
courses.”
I asked Abadie if she had discovered any
treasures here in Astoria.
“Oh yes. There is this gorgeous little shop
called the Broadway Silk Store on Broadway
and 36th Street. They mainly sell fabrics,
but also have a nice selection of homewares,
too. It’s run by a family and their cat,”
she said. “For dinner it has to be Gastroteca
in Astoria. I go there all the time. I also have
a subscription to the Museum of the Moving
Image, a fantastic museum that’s right
here in our neighborhood.”
In Abadie’s bedroom there stands a little
writing nook as one might imagine from a
Parisian girl. Opposite this is her bed, above
which looms a large African wall hanging.
“The wall hanging I bought in Benin,” she
said. “Each square represents a different
king of Benin through various symbols.”
Snuggled in various spots around the
room were a few cute little penguins.
“Did you know that Africa has penguins,
too?” Abadie asked me. (I didn’t know this.)
“But only in one country, South Africa. They
are called African penguins and their presence
in South Africa gave name to the Penguin
Islands.”
Abadie came to Astoria with a plan for
her interior design, but when she got here,
she found that she had to wing it.
“My plan when I moved to New York was
to decorate each room based on a place
where I have worked, but when I arrived
here I realized how small the apartments
were! That plan quickly fell by the wayside,”
she said. “Now I have decided that after a
year I will move from my West African decorations
to my North African fabrics and artifacts
from Morocco — completely redo the
space.”
I told Abadie that it was unlikely that
many people would redecorate their
space after a year, but I suppose when
you see as much of the world as Abadie
does, you need a space that reflects all of
the places that feel like home to you. From
a Parisian suburb to the north and west of
Africa to Astoria, New York, I have a feeling
that the journey of this intrepid explorer
has only just begun.
Photos: Ruthie Darling/BORO