This is one of a series of stories we are sharing to show what’s inside CubeSmart. You not only get a peek inside our customer’s storage unit, but also a peek inside what is important to them. Thank you to Kimberly, customer of our CubeSmart store in New York City, for sharing her story with us.
Kimberlee Imperato lives in the Clinton Towers complex, just a block or so away from our store at 444 West 55th St.
For Kimberlee, the complex is home to four generations of her family. At one point, her grandmother, her parents, her two aunts, and her children all lived in the same building.
Kimberlee’s mother was raised at the 396-unit complex; her mother moved back to Clinton Towers in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood with her husband when Kimberlee was 1.
Kimberlee laughed when she shared that soon after she turned 19, she moved out of home and into another apartment on a different floor.
Her grandmother died in November 2016. Kimberlee described her as a tough lady. “She taught me everything,” Kimberlee, 38, said. “She always said, ‘Don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.’ (A Biblical reference to giving in a way that doesn’t draw attention to oneself.) She’s a firm believer that women can do anything. You don’t need a man.”
Her grandmother, who was Sicilian, Turkish and Irish, was one of the first tenants to move into the building when it was built in 1974 and the first to move in to a unit on her floor. Kimberlee’s aunt now lives in the apartment where Kimberlee’s grandmother used to live.
“Busy and loud,” is how Kimberlee described her childhood at the complex. “That building is extremely diverse. “There’s actors and Hell’s Kitchen families that have been here forever.”
Kimberlee visited our store for our grand opening as she and two of her children, Benjamin, 9, and Khloe, 8, walked home from Khloe’s taekwondo activity.
Kimberlee also is mom to Bailee, 19, and Tammuz, 18. Bailee left for Air Force training on Aug. 7 in Lockland, Texas, which Kimberlee described as a bittersweet moment. Bailee’s belongings were kept at our store.
Kimberlee, who is engaged, has worked part-time as a directess at the Brooks Atkinson Theater on Broadway for the last 20 years. Waitress was playing at the theater at the time Kimberlee spoke to us.
“I’m you’re meet and greet person when you come in,” she said. “I’m the face you see when you come in. There’s two bag checkers, two ticket trackers, and then me.”
