night. The Giuliani Administration made things worse after they started cleaning up Times Square. “All that activity wound up in the Queens Plaza area, a few blocks from the house,” Donald said. Still, they lived happily in their house, pursuing their love of travel whenever possible. Once, during a six month sabbatical, Donald and Trudy drove across the country, ending up in Los Angeles. They then flew to Hawaii, and spent a month there until the travel bug hit them again and then headed to Mexico, where they then drove north through Texas, all the way to Florida and back up to New York. In 1980, when Donald retired as a biology teacher, he went back to school and got a masters in library science. “I wound up being the librarian in a school in Williamsburg where the students were mostly Dominican or Puerto Rican,” he said. “I learned Spanish pretty quickly to keep up with them.” During these years, Trudy left the hospital and worked different office jobs in Manhattan, including some years at Elizabeth Arden. Her last job was in the photography department at ABC News. “It was great because they would let me take off during the summer so Donald and I could do our traveling,” she said. Things slowly started changing in LIC after Citibank built its tower in the early 90s. The city started cracking down on the prostitution and drug trade in the area, making sweeps every once in a while and hauling people off to Rikers Island. “But they would be back a few days later “ Donald said. After years of steady decline, the area started to get better. Oldtime residents sold their properties and new, younger people moved in, improving the houses and raising property values. “But the transformation really happened after the zoning changes 10 years ago.” Donald said. “The developers came in and radically changed the flavor of our neighborhood.” Where once residential houses and one-story warehouses stood, tall office and apartment buildings started to rise. Today, tall glass rental towers a block away overlook their neat two-story house. Five active construction cranes can be seen from their street. “It’s a different place now. It’s like living in Manhattan,” Truday said. “The streets are safer, but the neighborly feeling is gone. “ What does the future hold for them? When asked this question, Trudy nods her head: “We are not planning to move to Florida. Im 88, and Donald will be 90 in April. Yes we like the warmer weather, but its too late for us to move there and start making friends”. “Besides”, Donald said, “it can freeze down there too. The orange groves freeze and orange juice prices go up.” “This is our home and we plan to stay here for as long as we can,” he added.
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