Just about every day, Mary Logue sinks into her beige sofa and admires the home she inherited a half century ago.
“This house,” she nearly whispers, “is everything.”
The modest two-family in East Watertown has been alive with the chatter of nightly dinners and family squabbles since 1943, when Mary’s aunt and uncle bought it. Tucked on a quiet street, the home would easily fit into many neighborhoods around Greater Boston. Square and green, the twin front doors framed by vertical lattice fencing. Step inside, and the carpeted stairs wind around a corner to an upstairs apartment that smells of yellowing magazines and baby powder, filled with artifacts from Mary’s 90 years: TV guides, framed photos, and tchotchkes dubbing her “World’s Greatest Grandma.” Her son, James, and his wife live downstairs.
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It used to be the kind of place someone could buy on a single income with a working-class paycheck, perhaps an immigrant family like the one that raised Mary.
That is not true anymore. Not in the place Greater Boston has become.
Diti Kohli can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @ditikohli_.