My building lacks the shared spaces that newer, flashier buildings advertise as a hedge against urban isolation, but we?ve formed a community just the same When my husband and I started dating, I was sharing an apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with two roommates and he lived alone in Astoria, Queens, a neighborhood I?d barely visited, except for one trip to its century-old German beer garden (that I?d soon learn was actually Czech, along with other things I?d come to know, like what to order in a proper Greek diner, the rhythms and regulars of his local dive bar, and the wonders of wash-and-fold laundry). One evening, I came over to his building, a humble structure named the Lady Patricia, and he told me to buzz a different apartment number. Confused, I walked up to the fourth floor to find him hanging out with three other guys in what I eventually gathered was his friend Sam?s apartment, shared with Sam?s girlfriend, Bari, and an awe-inspiring drinks collection. It transpired that Scott lived in the building too, on the third floor, and Jon had moved out a few years before, but was still in the neighborhood. It was his wife who?d first connected Tony with the building. I thought, What is this place" In some ways, Tony?s building epitomized a bygone era of New York apartment life, when people stayed in one place for years, got to know their neighbors, watched each other?s kids, and grew old walking the same shabby hallways. But this millennial version of com...