I’ve lived here nearly 9 years now and the am convinced that
the single most stressful part of NYC living is finding an apartment to live in.
Finding a place to live, a place to call home. When I first moved here I lived
in a small one bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side (corner of Rivington
and Clinton to be more exact) for a month, courtesy of the company I worked
for, so that I had time to find my own place. Yes, I thought that was small at
the time. I loved the
neighbourhood the moment I set foot in it, and spent the first few weeks
walking around at all times of the day and night, grabbing a drink at random
bars, observing people, buying Pringles at 24 hour delis at 4am, watching the
people walk by from the apartment’s fire escape and writing poems up there.
From the moment I started looking for a place to live I knew that the neighbourhood was completely
out of my price range, especially after I had decided that for the first time
in my life I wanted to live alone, without roommates…
I was clueless. I had no credit (what on earth was this
credit that everyone was speaking of), no real money to my name, no furniture
and no idea how I was going to find a place. I had also never been to NYC
before, let alone lived there, didn’t know anyone, and also had no idea on
where it was safe or cheaper to live. Luckily, after trawling through
Craigslist for a few days I found a 1 bedroom furnished sublet in Spanish
Harlem, on First Ave between 119th and 120th streets. A tiny one bedroom for $900 (heat
and hot water included, electricity separate) on the ground floor, with a
little back yard (meaning a concrete area outside the bedroom door). It
seemed pricy, but still affordable if I were careful, and it was finally my own
place. Some people warned me that the neighbourhood was dangerous, but in 10
months I lived there I never had a problem. The guys who were always hanging
out on my stoop were always courteous and opened the door for me, the man who
ran the deli next door held on to my packages for me, and the only unwanted
visitor I had was a rat, who appeared during my first week there, and after
that never reappeared again (yes, you quickly learn how to plug up holes that
may be found under the sink with wire…). Oh and a clogged toilet on July 4th
weekend just after I had moved in because the previous tenant thought that that
was where you disposed of your cigarette butts. Lesson learned – always have a
plunger at hand!
Ten months later I was able to secure a bank loan thanks to my
wonderful mother (she probably wouldn’t jump at doing that again though, but
that’s a whole other story), and started looking for a place that would be
mine, a studio on the LES, where I was all the time anyway. With the help of a
friend who also happened to be a broker I ended up finding a little rent stabilized
studio in the West Village, on Sixth Ave between Houston and Bleecker, right
above the restaurant called Bar Pitti. $1350 a month for a place to call my
home. I spent over $7 grand on first month’s rent and security deposit and
broker’s fees and furniture, and never thought about the fact that $1350 was
going to be too much to spend if I didn’t curb my lifestyle in a little… And
even though everything was super legit, I still felt like it was all kinds of
shady, signing your life away to a management company or landlord that issues
you with a lease with so much small print that your brain starts to hurt after
the first sentence. Advice to all: always read the small print, especially if
you have a vindictive landlord who will try to extort money out of you after
your lease ends. I signed a 2 year lease on this place and although I don’t
regret living there, and the experience of living in the West Village, the
convenience to everything and the fact that I could literally walk everywhere I
needed to go to, if I had to do it again I would have been a lot more
financially savvy, and would have spent less money on rent and electricity and take-out
and all the rest. But I still have fond memories of that little place, where
the two windows looked out onto another building and where it got so hot in the
summer there was no way you could live without AC. The convenience of the
location was amazing – I walked everywhere. If I didn’t feel like getting out
of bed I could call the deli down the street and they would deliver within 20
minutes. So convenient that I ended up spending most of my time outside of the
apartment, and in the end it just became a place to sleep rather than a home. A
very expensive place to sleep.
When the rent just got too much and my lease was finally
about to expire my friend Beth and I decided to look for a place together in
Brooklyn, as she was in the same situation as me, and both of us needed
something cheaper. I also just wanted
more space and light in my life. We had no idea where we should go in Brooklyn,
visited a few places in Williamsburg, and branched out a little to Bushwick,
even though most people we knew warned us not to. This was 6 years ago when no
one wanted to live in Bushwick. We saw a 2 bedroom going for $1900 in a brand
new building just off the Myrtle-Broadway stop on the J and decided to visit
it. The place was amazing. Huge space with stainless steel appliances (a
dishwasher!!), laundry IN the apartment (yes IN THE UNIT), and huge windows.
The street itself looked pretty calm and there wasn’t much around in terms of
restaurants or bars, but it was $1900… Meaning that we would both be saving
around $400 a month EACH. Yes, we jumped on it. I still can’t believe that I
thought that the commute would be a little long after living in the West
Village for ages… Then we were told we had to present first and last month’s
rent, as well as one month’s security deposit before we could sign the lease.
And ASAP, in case someone else wanted the unit and got in there before us. That’s
a total of $5700. Luckily we managed to get them to agree to first month and
security deposit and got the money together within the week. We passed our
credit checks and other checks, signed the lease and had the keys within a few
days. The first people to move into a brand new, empty building. We felt like queens!!
We discovered the neighbourhood and watched Bushwick change rapidly over the
years. We negotiated our rent down to $1,700 and it hardly went up over the
years… Until last year. Last year saw a huge influx in new buildings in
Bushwick, and also a huge hike in rent. Ours went up from $1750 to $2000 (and
even after a meeting with our landlords they assured us that they wanted to go
up to $2200 but didn’t want to lose us so agreed to $2000). People were really
paying these types of rents in Bushwick?? Apparently so.
(The story of life on Troutman St will be relayed in
another, separate account. It deserves its own post).
And so now it is time to move again. For multiple reasons,
most importantly because I am having a baby in April, because I want to move in
with my boyfriend in OUR own home, and because I want to pay less rent. Over
the years my credit has gone from being nil to passable to completely crap, and
C. has no credit at all, not making it any easier to secure a place. On top of
that our lease runs out on February 28th, and I don’t want to have
to move when I am ready to give birth. The stress of finding an apartment in
this city makes me want to cry on a good day – imagine being 7 months pregnant
and traipsing the streets looking for a place that will take you without credit
and that is actually affordable… We had already decided that Queens was where
we were heading this time, with rents that are still affordable and places that
were still of a decent size. I walked out of the first agency in tears because
the woman told me she couldn’t help us as we didn’t have good credit. Didn’t
even try. So we started grabbing numbers from leaflets on lamp posts on
Roosevelt Avenue, and ended up meeting some type of broker guys in the back
room of an Internet café (yes sketchy it was). They took us to a few places,
one being a large one bedroom apartment in Flushing. Yes, large. And quiet. And
on the ground floor. And airy. And light. And large. Did I already mention
large? Oh, and with a rent of $1275 a month.
Yes, it’s in Flushing. A few blocks away from the last stop
on the 7 line (but still, no buses! It’s still off the subway!!). Does this
bother me? Surprisingly, no. To be honest it’s a perfect compromise. I’m tired
of being in the noisy parts of the city. I want to be able to take my baby to
the supermarket and to the park without feeling that I am walking a stroller
through a maze of unexpected obstacles. I want to be able to relax at home
without hearing sirens and car horns and people blaring their music from their
car stereo. So, Flushing it is… I hope! This time it’s even more shifty as we
don’t want to have to go through a credit check just to get rejected, but the
lovely gentlemen who showed us the apartment are helping us through it and we
will be signing the lease tomorrow… Fingers crossed as I don’t want to jinx it,
but with a little help from some friends, long hours at work and the art of
living off pasta for a week we managed to cobble together the funds that we
need to get the keys. It appears to all be legit too as the landlord/owner of
the building called our workplace to check that we weren’t lying about our jobs…
Honestly, looking for and finding an apartment in NYC always feel completely
sketchy, as if you are doing something slightly illegal. Even when you have
amazing credit and a decent salary and enough money to pay for 3 months rent up
front.
I can’t wait to take this next step, setting up our child’s
first home, living in a new borough of the city (for me) and just discovering a
new neighbourhood. I’m excited to decorate a new place with our drawings and
photos and belongings, making it ours. And I’m so happy that I don’t have to
worry about this any longer, as once the lease is signed we can focus on moving
and setting up the apartment for the baby… So long Brooklyn, Queens here we
come!
All images © Jade Anna Hughes
Memorial Day weekend always reminds me of moving to NYC –
the heat, the humidity, the laziness of the first holiday of the year since New
Year’s Day in the middle of the bustle and noise of everyday life. Subsequent
years bore beach days and hungover days; brunch times and walks in the city; Long Island days and barbeques in Bushwick.
Every year I longed for Memorial Day weekend to arrive so that I could
celebrate the beginning of summer, my real favourite season in NYC. This year
it crept up on me, my first Memorial Day as a family: a day where no one needed
to work, a day to spend together as we see fit, no plans, just mother, father
and baby time. .JPG)
Nowadays it’s really just the simple things that matter: a
walk in the park, watching the turtles watching you with their little heads
sticking out of the water, looking at the squirrel scampering away with the
acorn in its mouth, relaxing on a blanket under a tree and closing your eyes.
Choosing a pretty spring outfit for yourself and your daughter, knowing full
well that she doesn’t care if you are in a dress or pyjamas, or if she is in a
onesie or a dress, but doing it anyway because it is fun and because you can. Walking
along the sidewalk as a unit, mother, father, daughter, altogether as one,
making jokes and gazing at the pretty houses and gardens, imagining together
what our next home and garden will look like. Tickling your child under the
chin with a blade of grass and listening to her laugh and hoping that you will
hear that beautiful sound every day, forever.
Flushing ended up being a good choice for us, because
despite the commute into Manhattan, it really is beautiful here. There are
parks and gardens and trees and flowers everywhere and a happy alternative to
the race of the city and all that it entails. As I was walking around the
neighbourhood yesterday I realised just how much every single priority had
changed for the better. A walk in the park is just so much more enjoyable now,
as are all of those little things that we take for granted most of the time,
the turtles and the squirrels and the naps in the grass, the smell of concrete
after a rain shower, and the lilac bushes in bloom on the street corners. I
guess this is what my real happiness is… 
