One New York Life

Two years ago, I made tentative bar-hopping plans coinciding with the New York City Marathon. The general idea was to start at the bottom of First Ave and work our way up the street until it started feeling a little too close to East Harlem, then work our way back down. For whatever reason, this fell through and I ended up staying in my apartment to watch football. Last year, we didn’t really even attempt plans.

This year, however, forces aligned properly. A friend of a friend (conveniently, the same one whose apartment I looked at, decided to throw a marathon party. His apartment overlooks First Ave, which means we had a great view of the runners from the third floor. He also had a fire escape and a refrigerator full of beer.

I headed out about 11:00 am to try and get there by noon. I figured that most of the normal, human runners would be passing by there about then. I got to his apartment about 12:15 pm (after having to let three 6 trains pass by the 59th street station because they were too packed to get on. The irony that, in the time it took me to take the subway from my apartment uptown, some runners had already finished 3/4ths of a marathon was not lost on me). If I was remotely athletic or cared about running, it might bother me. As it was, I got out to a packed First Avenue just as the bulk of the normal runners were coming through. After shoving through the crowd and reaching the blessed front door of the apartment, I went upstairs.

The host had a full spread of snacks and beers and his windows were wide open allowing easy access to the fire escape. This, my friends, was the way to watch the marathon. No crowd, no shoulder to shoulder, and only drunks that I wanted to associate with bumping into me. So, after having some bagels and cheese and such, I stepped out onto the fire escape and proceeded to shout encouragement to people who had their names on their shirts. This was incredibly more fun than it had any right to be. Just random name shouting followed by “WHOOOOOO!!!!” and “LEG IT OUT!”. I will say, if I was seventeen miles deep and was being told to “leg it out” or “dig for it” by someone with a mouthful of bagel with a double-fist of beer, I’d probably want to spit in their eye. As it was, it got progressively more fun to shout names and then try to figure out the correct ethnic pronunciations. Carrrrrrrrrrlos, Pedrrrrrrrrooooooooo, Helmut, Jedvic, Guuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuy, and Aaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaa were amongst the favorites. This shortly devolved into random things the person was wearing if a name was not available… such “yeah, balloon tied to your back guy!” and “go, shameless promo for Dunkin Donuts dude!”.

There’s something to be said for cheering people on and not being forced to associate with the masses on the side of the street. I’ve decided that, if I ever do Times Square for New Year’s, this is how I’ll have to do it. I need a balcony, a constant source of alcohol and food, a bathroom, and a distinct separation line between me and everyone else. That’s the way to do it.

Of course, after this party, I’m even MORE disappointed that we couldn’t work out a sublet for this place. I’d have been excited to host this party for the next couple of years. On the bright side, I’ve checked something else off my “things to do in New York” list. Hopefully I’ll also be able to finish up “go to a Knicks game” and “go to a Rangers game”.

So I handed in my keys to the old place today. I’m officially moved. I still haven’t started receiving mail at the new place yet. I filed my change of address last week and, surprise surprise, it still actually takes 2 weeks to get a forwarded mail request done… even if you’re moving within the same zip code. The conversation went something like this.

Me: “I need to file a change of address.”
Guy: “Fill this form out. When do you want it to go into effect?”
Me: “Tomorrow.”
Guy: “OK, it will take about two weeks to process.”
Me: “But I’m moving down the street. I’m still in the same zip code.”
Guy: “Doesn’t matter.”
Me: “Of course it doesn’t.”

The move mostly went off without a hitch. The movers were late (for the second time running) but, in a twist that I didn’t see coming, they pushed for their tip before they actually moved anything (as opposed to the leg-breaking Russians who negotiated for their tip before they brought the stuff up from the truck… this seemed much more effective). Y’see, we used a company called Flat Rate Movers, who are supposed to send someone to your apartment to “estimate” the flat rate. They do this by pieces of furniture and apparently by how much stuff can fit into their industrial sized boxes. Ms. L spoke with them and, since we have very little furniture following the incident, they gave her a quote. The quote assumed 1 box (and, when I say box, it’s huge… something like 10 by 15) of stuff. Of course, when the movers got there, they discovered that our stuff will need 3 boxes. So, after telling us they’d have to call the main office and figure out how much extra to charge and they weren’t sure if they could move everything and a lot of quick talking in Spanish which I didn’t understand (but assume it was some talk about baseball, stupid gringos, pretending to sound panicked, and discussing how much they could suck out of us) they came back with “we don’t have to call the company, we’ll take care if it if you want.” Which was code for: “how much extra will you float us to take everything now so you don’t have to go through the hassle?” Turns out $50/guy (3 guys) was enough… which was fine because we were planning on giving them $30/guy anyway… I love Mexicans.

New twist on the moving, each building wanted a $300 cash deposit from me, which meant I had to walk to the bank, withdraw $600, and walk home… on the streets of New York… with half a grand in my front pocket. I can think of roughly 150 things I would rather do than walk around with that much cash on me. Fortunately, I likely looked enough like a paranoid crack addict looking for a fix that I was certainly left alone lest I draw the attention of the NYPD.

After getting here, my goal on the first day (obviously) was to get the Internet and cable set up. Points for Manhattan… when you have actually 2 competing cable companies, none of this nonsense about waiting a week for a cable hookup to come. The cable guy was here when I got here. Wired up the cable and the Internet before the movers even showed up.

A day after we got here, Ms. L left for Orlando. She called it “Senior Staff training.” I called it “conveniently getting out of Dodge to skip out on all the unpacking.” I, of course, reminded her about the time she decided to start a fight with me just long enough to bail on helping me paint my townhouse. I asked her if it would be a running theme: having “work trips” whenever any sort of labor is required. She said no… I say when it comes time to paint this place that she’ll conveniently have that trip to India to meet her Team India Accountants.

However, it actually didn’t work out to be that bad. I basically got to spend a couple days setting up the apartment how I want it. I also discovered that I have significantly more floor space in this apartment than in the old one. Now, granted, I still don’t have a couch or anything, but I have gaping wall space where I can finally get some sort of DVD shelving.

So, Thursday night I got home from work and spent the night unpacking clothes. I can officially say this: gentlemen, you have not suffered until you’ve unpacked the girl’s clothes and tried to put them away. To set the stage: our old apartment had two small closets in the bedroom and a coffin sized closet near the front door. To this we added two four-drawer dressers and one two-drawer dresser. On top of that, we have four plastic bins.

Now, the new place has a walk in closet in the bedroom and a coat closet that’s about six feet wide. I take up, officially, one dresser and about 3 feet of the walk in closet. Stupidly, I assumed both dressers and the walk-in closet would be enough. After filling the dresser with just shirts… Just shirts!! I moved on to the closet. After filling the closet, both dressers, and all four bins, I then started on the laundry. As I was pulling clothes out of the dryer I had one thought:

Where the f*ck did these clothes fit in the old apartment? I was trying to figure out what dimensional portal I missed in the old apartment where these clothes were stored. After I finally finished the laundry I walked in to the living room and noticed four more black garbage bags, I could do nothing but stare. I think I looked like Brett Favre after a concussion. There couldn’t possibly be more clothes in them… yet somehow, there were. Is there a magic girl power that I don’t know about? Like… do Bags of Holding and Portable Holes actually exist and I missed a meeting? If so, I’d love to have one. I had the same moment yesterday with books. On our bookshelf in the old apartment, it was interspersed with books and random decorations. As I was putting the books up on the shelf this time I still have a good 50 books sitting on the floor and the shelf is completely full. Where did all this stuff fit?

It’s starting to wind down now… finally. Tomorrow I have to set the DVD player and video games up. Then, I get to finally get a couch and a bed and hopefully finally put the incident totally behind us. There is an hour long massage waiting for me somewhere when this air mattress finally dies a burning, horrible death.

Of course, I’m relatively certain I’ll have to move everything somewhere else when she gets home, but for now… Miller time.

Battery Park City’s demise has been greatly exaggerated. For a while it was touch ‘n go, but it fought it’s way back valiantly.

The apartment we found in Rector Place turned out to be the winner. Most of the other places we looked at were only $300ish/month less than this place, and this place is much more convenient to subways than Murray Hill or Yorkville. Unfortunately, it means my days on the 4/5 will be extended indefinitely. My ultimate desire was somewhere in the East 70s that would be close enough for me to walk to work but, alas, it is not to be. I get to pry myself into the 4 every morning.

So, we are officially making the shortest move in the history of moves.

$300 to the movers.

As it turns out: an owner of an apartment would rather deduct $200/month for 2 years instead of painting his apartment. I guess there’s something to be said for living in a city where people are certainly too rich.

Now, feel free to let me know why staying down here for another 2 years wasn’t a bad idea.

We had really decided that we weren’t going to look in Battery Park City. The rents here have gotten so out-of-hand that people are paying $2600/month and $3100/month for 1-bedrooms. I don’t get it. I mean, my apartment’s nice, but it’s not THAT nice.

For shits and giggles, though, I checked out one of the local brokers. There are three down here in this little neighborhood… which makes renting down here a pain in the ass. One of them, though, had places in another building by our same management company for $2300/month… with “negotiable.”

Hmm.

Turns out the building is also in Rector Place; literally right down the street. We looked at two places, both by owner, not by the management company.

Apartment One: A small one-bedroom $2400/month. Basically the exact same apartment I have now but a little smaller. Come to find out it was a studio when it was purchased and the owner installed a wall to make it a one-bedroom. Big bathroom and huge closets. Cons: one entire wall was mirrors. Real creepy. I know I don’t hang out with a whole lot of people down here but watching TV with myself is a little strange.

Apartment Two: The one we actually saw online. It’s “negotiable” because the owner hasn’t painted it or really cleaned it since the last tenant left. The negotiable part was how much work we expected to be done on it. One of the benefits of living in a city where everyone is posh and lazy, I guess, is that if you’re willing to do a little bit of work, you can save yourself some money. I agreed to paint it, clean it, and handle the replacement of the blinds for if he came down from the asking price.

Leaving BPC is starting to look dim.

Ms. L and I are huge fans of Rent, so when we found out that Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp, the original Roger and Mark respectively, were going to be reprising their roles on Broadway for a couple of months we figured we’d go. Then, with Ms. L’s work schedule and the whole “we’re going to need like six thousand dollars to move pretty soon” thing, we kind of decided to let it go. Then, her sister decided that she wanted to go see it, so that gentle push was enough to get us to go. As an added benefit, Tamyra Gray was on the bill as Mimi. Second bonus: it turned out we got tickets to the last night that Pascal and Rapp were going to be there which told us two things: 1) there wouldn’t be understudies… everyone in the cast would be there for the last show and 2) the crowd would likely be split 70/30 between people who were Rent fans and tourists… with the balance being in the Rent fans favor for once.

One of my favorite parts of going to a Rent show is searching the crowd for people who will be offended and leave before the second act. Usually people with kids under 10 are a good bet. Without fail, there are a couple… and without fail, they usually leave. The second are obvious tourists… after being down here for a while you are able to sniff them out. These are usually the folks who decided to see Rent because they were going to New York and they’ve heard of it… but they have no idea what it’s about. These are the folks most likely to be put off by the… er… explicit parts.

All that said, I’m really happy we decided to drop the money for this show. It was the best version of it I’ve seen so far. The cast was really into it and the crowd, which really turned out to be more 80/20 than 70/30 knew their cues… they knew where to start cheering and Mooing and such. I made excellent time to the bathroom at intermission and hit it without having to stand in line (MONEY!). All-in-all, I had a fantastic time. It’ll probably be the last time I go to this for quite some time since I can’t imagine it being any better. Might as well go out on top.

Unless I somehow swing some of the $20 front row seats… but as I have a job I don’t see that happening any time soon.

A friend of a friend is in the process of buying a place in Brooklyn Heights. It’s a nice neighborhood one subway stop outside Manhattan. As such, when realtors call it an “Up and Coming” neighborhood, it really is. It’s not a hole that someday might be up and coming… it actually IS up and coming.

So, since his landlord wasn’t really down with giving him a month-to-month lease until he was able to get everything coordinated, he’s looking for someone to sublet the apartment when he moves. The apartment was on the Upper East Side, the same area where the apartment with no bathroom was located. It’s out on First Avenue, which means it’s going to be a half-mile hike to a subway… or for me a mile hike to my office. Doable.

The apartment was really nice. One of the nicer ones I’d seen thus far. It was smaller than the place we have now and there was no dishwasher, but the kitchen was located in a nice little alcove (which we could use our liquor cabinet to extend the alcove space and make it more defined), the bathroom was a reasonable size, closet space was good, and the bedroom and living room was actually separated by a little hallway. The window overlooked First Ave which made it a prime location for an NY Marathon party.

Unfortunately, our lease is up at the end of October and he doesn’t expect to be out until Mid-November… which makes me very sad, because I dug the apartment and it was under $2k/month. It was also no-fee (since it’s a sublet) and dubbed “pest-free” by the current resident.

Now I’m officially bummed.

On Sunday we continued or tour of “Not Manhattan” by checking out Riverdale in the Bronx. Riverdale is actually a pretty ritzy location. It boast two Metro-North Stations and the end of the 1. The apartment complex I looked at was Skyview. It’s a co-op; which just means that all of the apartments are individually owned while the building association takes care of maintenance and the grounds. Unlike Manhattan, Skyview boasts space… space enough to have a large pool, tennis courts, a dog run, and parking. Glorious, lovely parking.

We looked at one apartment, an alcove studio, which was roughly the size of our current apartment if you took out the wall that makes this place a “one bedroom”. Bonus: it was fully furnished… which means that we’d save a little bit of cash by putting off replacement furniture for a couple of years. This led to the following conversation:

Ms. L: Doesn’t it creep you out a little to sleep on a used mattress?
Me: I spent six years of college retrieving furniture from the dumpster at Raymour and Flanigan. I’ll get over it.
Ms. L: But it’s gross.
Me: Is there any chance that we’re not buying a mattress cover anyway?

Interestingly, Riverdale’s right next door to another neighborhood in the Bronx that I didn’t know existed: Fieldston. Fieldston’s like… real houses with real yards located in the Bronx. Most of the places are absolutely gorgeous and probably worth millions of dollars. In fact, driving through it in my buddy’s Matrix, I was pretty sure we were going to be asked to leave.

Negatives. The commute is on the Metro-North, an Express Bus, or a MTA Bus/Subway combo. Neither of which is great. The Metro-North is a pain because I’d have to live on a train schedule (even though I work near Grand Central). Express Buses, while great in theory, are a disaster because they have to deal with traffic. Absolutely pass on the bus/1-train combo. The lease is a maximum of 2 years. That’s the maximum that the building allows people to rent their places. Then they have to either shit or get off the pot. Negative number 3: It’s a co-op… which means we both have to go through a whole interview process followed by the board voting on whether or not we’re worthy to stay in their building. The problem with this is that by the time the application process is completed it would be the end of the month. Negative number 4: the girl doesn’t like it. It’s a studio, the owners want double the security deposit because they don’t trust the Ninja on their furniture.

Unfortunately, I love the place. The terrace (Good Lord, I’m going to end up turning down a place with outdoor space all my own) even had a nice view of the Hudson River and the George Washington Bridge. For $1400/month + $100/month for an off-street parking spot I get a place in a complex that I like, my car back, and 1 building over from one of my old college roommates.

Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure the 51% of the vote that women own will over-rule me.

Chapter 3 starts the “look outside Manhattan” portion of our jaunt to find digs that won’t run us $3,000/month. A lot of people I know who live in the city have found apartments out in Astoria, Queens. Astoria is located just outside Manhattan; I’ll call it 10 subway stops from midtown. As borough locations go, Astoria’s a pretty money spot. 1 bedrooms apartments in Astoria range from $1200 – $1800 depending on the location. Two bedrooms are a little more. Either one is less than this place.

One of Ms. L’s co-workers is a life-long Astoria resident. He offered to cruise us around the neighborhood in his car to show us the decent places to live.

We didn’t actually look at any apartments there as Saturday was mostly a walking tour, but I kinda dug Astoria. I’d only ever been out there to visit a different one of the girl’s co-workers. It’s kind of a weird neighborhood with equal parts Greek and Middle Eastern. It was the only neighborhood in New York I’ve been through where women were wearing the full on burka get-ups. Literally nothing visible but their eyes… head-to-toe in black. If that’s your gig, cool… I guess.

Long story short, the neighborhood was nice. It was kind of a Manhattan-lite that I could deal with. Of course, Ms. L is in charge of finding apartments in Queens… which just about seals the deal that we’ll end up living in one of the 3 boroughs I’m in charge of trolling.

Speaking of fake listings… I came across an apartment on craigslist a couple of days ago for an apartment on the Lower East Side for $1850/month. This is not completely unreasonable as transportation on the LES kind of blows.

There was no contact info on the post so I e-mailed the link given in the listing. Someone responded to me within an hour giving me a link NYC Rent No Fee.com. The gimmick: register as a member for the low, one-time fee of $49.99 and you’ll be allowed to view all their listings. A quick Google search determined that, once you pay the fee, none of the apartments they list exist (shocking) and the give you a long list of no fee apartments in like… Bushwick.

I e-mailed a response asking if the scam really worked more than it didn’t. I’m still waiting for a reply.

As it’s getting close to October, Ms. L and I have finally started contacting some apartment brokers to get some idea of what we’ll get when we move. One thing that two years have wiped for my memory is that apartment brokers tend to be a lot about as trustworthy as used car salesmen. One quick run around Craig’s list reminded me of this as I find apartments listed as Upper East or West side when they’re in Harlem, Queens, or New Jersey, oversized studios listed as one bedrooms, and Ye Olde Bait’n'Switch.

For readers who haven’t dealt with the city, an apartment broker is a real estate agent that deals in apartments. Buildings list their apartments with the broker. The broker deals with filling the apartment. The broker gets a fee. The broker’s fee is usually 15% of the annual rent of the apartment. Therefore, if the broker finds you an apartment worth $2000/month the annual rent is $24,000, so you owe the broker $3600. Some buildings do this, some buildings don’t… buildings that do list their apartments exclusively through a broker. Why buildings do this I really have no idea. The broker is an all right way to go. They do most of the leg-work and are supposed to show you apartments that fit your budget.

So, this first broker I found in the The Village Voice. I was going through the apartment listings in the print version and stumbled across a number attached to a few underpriced-looking apartments. I Googled the number to see if it came up as a scam and it led me to the website for New York City Apartments, Inc. A quick web-search reveals a bunch of apartments with decent floor space for under $2000. The website promises that they’re the “best no-fee and rent stabilized apartment broker in the city.” Well, fine then. Rent stabilized apartments tend to be a little cheaper than the regular deal so I figured it was worth a call.

So we went to the office to meet with one of the brokers. I told him our budget and what we were looking for. He mentioned that the rental market is very tight right now and what we were looking for would be tough. “But,” I ask. “There were a list of apartments on your website right in our price range. A whole lot of them, actually. Like… 84 of them to be exact. They let us know that the Manhattan rental market changes quickly and availability changes rapidly. Strike 1.

So we sit down and start discussing what we want. One bedroom, preferably dishwasher, preferably elevator, somewhere between $1700-$2200. They send us out with a junior agent who brings us up into the far reaches of the Upper East Side. I was bright enough to bring the camera but not bright enough to make sure it had batteries.

Apartment One: East 72nd Street, Apt 8

Summed up by the following conversation:

Ms L: Where’s the shower?
Agent: In the bathroom.
Ms L: Yeah, that’s the first place I looked.
Me: It has no shower.
Agent: It must have a shower.
Me: No wonder it’s empty.

The smallish place, roughly 2,000 miles from the nearest subway line had a small living room and a small bedroom connected by an exposed kitchen. And no shower. And they were still looking for about $1700/month for it. Strike 2. This led to the following conversation with my friend Mike:

Me: It had no shower. Not only that but the broker made us wait half-an-hour past our appointment. I thought she was going to kill him.
Mike: The creepy part is that, not only would I not be surprised if she’d killed him, I’d be surprised if her heart rate broke 77.
Me: It is New York, I think the NYPD would understand. “Officer, he showed us an apartment with no shower in the middle of the work day.”
Mike: “Carry on, ma’am. We’ll call in the clean-up crew.”

Apartment Two: East 72nd Street, Apt 13, $1800/month

Same building but a higher floor and a little larger. Bonus: it had a shower. Unfortunately it was trashed with clothes. Matter of fact, it looked like someone was getting ready to move out. Ms. L smacked down the immediate kaybosh.

Apartment Three: East 89th Street, Apt B13, $2395/month

Hey, look at that. The first apartment they show us that’s really worth looking into was more than our budget. Not only that, but a fee! Color me shocked. We actually liked this apartment. It boasted a decent-sized living room on the 4th floor. The front window overlooked the back of the building, which was a collection of small backyards. The kitchen was a tiny stove and refrigerator with no dishwasher. Down the hallway was a tiny bedroom featuring the only bathroom in the house. This was the best apartment we saw all day, but the bathroom being located through the bedroom was kind of put-offish. We actually considered getting this apartment for a few minutes today until someone pointed out that if we divided out the broker fee, it would work out to be about $2600/month for the extent of a one-year lease.

So out of curiosity, I went back to the website and, lo and behold, the same 84 apartments were returned in my search results… surprisingly the Manhattan Real Estate market had changed quickly enough that the same apartments that were available on Thursday but not on Friday were back on the Market come Tuesday. Imagine my surprise.

Next plan: meander through TriBeCa and Downtown to see if I find random “Apartment Available” signs.