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I’ve lived in the same West Town three-flat for more than ten years and, like anyone who stands still that long in the city, I’ve seen the neighborhood change radically around me. Some of it’s been for the better, some of it for the worse, but few upheavals bummed me out more than when the crumbling cottage next door was sold to a developer and my neighbor Nance Klehm had to move. An urban gardener, artist, and landscape designer, Nance and her lush backyard were a generous source of fresh herbs and monster zucchini, and one of my favorite summertime memories is still of the day in the mid-90s when a friend who worked for the Heifer Project showed up to leave a half-dozen fuzzy ducklings in Nance’s foster care — the friend’s boyfriend having had it up to here, apparently, with his bathtub doubling as a duck nursery.
