A Rooming House, West 14th Street, New York

An unremarkable building distinguished by one tenant's elaborate, ammonia-cooled apartment and the very specific reason he can never let it warm up. The building's plumbing and wiring were never built to carry the load he puts on them.

Whereabouts: A converted brownstone on West 14th Street in Manhattan, chosen by the narrator for its low rent shortly after his arrival in the city.

Access: By ordinary tenancy — the narrator simply rents a room, and Dr. Muñoz's upstairs apartment later becomes accessible the same mundane way, through a shared landlady.