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‘However, somebody killed something: that’s clear, at any rate—’ Through The Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll   I BEGINNING   I was a pre-teen when Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp moved into a loft across the street from me in Tribeca, where I lived An older neighbour friend, the sister of a classmate, told me they were living in her loft building, on the top floor I went home and looked for them that very same day I saw him at my corner deli, and on the street smoking, but never her At night, I sometimes looked up at their windows and saw their lights on The older friend said they had no furniture and seemed nice Depp was not very impressive in person Cute, but no big deal His jeans had paint on them and his t-shirt had holes You might not look at him unless you knew you were supposed to, which is really the singular difference between people on-screen and people off-screen: famous people are to be looked at   The story is Ryder didn’t want to live in pre-gentrification Tribeca because it was too isolated and scary to her, so they moved out after only a few months This is of course ridiculous Who could be afraid of Tribeca, already considerably gentrified by the early 90s, unless they were supremely bougie? Ryder was supposed to be this bohemian girl; this down-to-earth hippie, who could live anywhere and had grown up on a California commune But it turned out that the Lower West Side of Manhattan in the early 90s, primarily still a white artist’s enclave at that point, was just too wild for her I loved Winona Ryder then I, a weird-girl, could not believe that a weird-girl like her was on screen when she showed up in Beetlejuice and Heathers Her creaky voice, black eyes, and 1940s style dark hair, which she chose over her allegedly natural blonde I even forgave Ryder her bad acting in period films like The Age of Innocence,