Do you know what a “penthouse” is?

A luxury top-floor apartment? Yes and no. That’s what it means now but when skyscrapers were first built, and this song was first written, the penthouse was the little concrete shed on the roof where the janitor lived. So these lyrics speak of romance blossoming even in cramped, unpromising surroundings. Though whenever I hear it, I yearn to live in a huge Manhattan penthouse. Mind you, I can seldom leave my house without having to come back for my wallet, my phone or sometimes, my trousers. That’s bad enough on the ground floor, so probably best I don’t live on the 38th.