Miche Griffin grew up on a farm near Nashville, dreaming of a more exciting life. “As a kid, I was drawing pictures of my loft in New York City,” she said. “Somewhere deep inside, I knew I needed the distraction and the busyness that the city offered.”

She arrived in the East Village nearly 30 years ago, feeling like a pioneer and a risk-taker. “That was when Tompkins Square Park was full of tents, and one guy had cooked his girlfriend and fed her to the homeless people,” she said. “That was what I moved to.”

Ms. Griffin eventually settled with her partner in a two-bedroom rental in a walk-up building , above a restaurant on a busy East Village block, and their daughter was born not long after. Her partner died about a decade later.

Three and a half years ago, their daughter left for college in New England. She was never a city girl at heart, Ms. Griffin said. Even as a child, she agonized about homeless people, and complained that the playground was too loud and disorienting. When she moved away, “She said, ‘I don’t think I’ll live in New York City again.’”