Central Park was one of the earliest real estate developments marketed to the middle class. It not only featured little houses like the one in Grant Wood's American Gothic, but also had a large number of desirable homeowners, including celebrities, lawyers, doctors, engineers, and company executives. You could tell as much from two inconspicuous lines of Chinese and German on the back of the sculpture at the entrance to Central Park: "The economic base determines the superstructure."
Karl Marx was certainly right. The economic base determined what kind of house, how much floor space, and even how many private parking spaces a homeowner could afford in Central Park. And so the pecking order took shape.
At the very top were the homeowners in Beverly, Phase One. Take the Hu family at Number 1, for example. The retired couple had money and plenty of free time, and even after retirement they still made a fortune every day. Their life was the envy of everyone. But word had it that their only son, who was pursuing a PhD at MIT, had gone crazy!
The houses in Palm Beach, Phase Two, were a little worse than those in Beverly, but Engineer Sun's family still seemed to have it all to outsiders. The Suns had three sons in one go, each tall and strapping, with a commanding presence. From a distance, they looked like three sturdy calves. Who wouldn't admire them? But the couple came from the countryside and had renovated their lovely villa to look like a rustic farmhouse. Their taste really dragged down the standards of all Central Park.
The houses in Napa Valley, Phase Three, were even worse than those in Phases One and Two. The homeowners there could just about be considered comfortably off, but they still fell short of the middle-class standard expected at Central Park. Yet the married couple in the Cheng family at Number 5 were like the leads in a romance drama. The two of them were the perfect representatives of the new "three highs": high education, high salaries, and high looks. He was handsome, she was beautiful, and wherever they stood, they were a sight to behold. What's more, this young couple already had a daughter and a son, making a complete family. They seemed like rising stars with plenty of potential. But rumors said that this seemingly glamorous couple were actually broke, living beyond their means with no savings at all...
In short, even the middle class has its share of troubles.
Theme: A tribute to Richard Yates.
