The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychology cites moving
to a new community as "one of the most stress-producing events a family
faces." Combine that with Manhattan's apartment vacancy rate for the
month of March -- less than 1% -- and the fact that Corrin and I are two
single people combining households for the first time (an event ranked
as more stressful than planning a wedding and having a baby combined),
and you might have a theoretical understanding of what the last few months have been like for us -- and what the next few weeks will continue to bring.
The Search for a Neighborhood
We started thinking about, researching, and examining
apartment listings for various neighborhoods in early November, about a
month after we made the decision to live together. Knowing that we
wouldn't make the move until late spring (at the end of her academic
year and the end of my busiest fundraising season) we still started our
research early. We took stock of our lifestyles -- both regarding our
life together and our individual interests -- and narrowed down a
selection of neighborhoods that would work for us.
Speaking generally, Corrin was less happy with anything terribly far
from campus, and I was very unhappy with anything much north of the
Columbia gates at 116th. Considering the difficulty and general
unreliability of cross-town transportation, anything so far east as to
make a walk to campus or an express train unpleasant was completely out. Additionally most of our activities take place on Columbia's campus; in the not-Times-Square theatre districts; in Central, Riverside, or Morningside parks; in the blocks surrounding my office at Herald Square; or in the West Village. We were left with decidedly west side neighborhoods on our list:
The Search for an Apartment
Having narrowed down the areas we were willing to call "home", we
started looking at apartment amenities in earnest. We made exhaustive
lists of features -- a kitchen large and pleasant enough to cook in
together and host dinner parties from; a living space that included some
sort of nook that could be used for Corrin's study -- either a loft, an
alcove, or a closet (a full second bedroom is almost too much to hope
for); a large enough footprint that our cats wouldn't go stir crazy and
climb the curtains, with a layout conducive to entertaining our friends
(i.e. a bathroom available without having guests traipse through our
bedroom, and space for a decent-sized dining table). Good quality light,
at least some of it direct sunlight, and some form of green space were
absolutely necessary, as were laundry facilities in the building.
After several months of making lists and debating our negotiable
points, we reached out in early April to hit up various real estate
firms to find brokers with access to what interested us. We found
listings that we liked on the CitiHabitats, Corcoran, Bond, Fenwick
Keats, NY Bits, and StreetEasy websites, as well as Columbia's Off Campus Housing List, and
contacted brokers at each firm (or on each composite site) to compile
lists for us. With a less than 1% vacancy rate, our loyalty wasn't
available at any price; any agent willing to show us a listing received
our attention.
We made appointments to view two dozen apartments between the
third and seventeenth of April, and visited nine of them before we
struck gold. Some of those first nine met some of our needs; they were
on beautiful blocks in the neighborhoods we most loved, were apartments
with amazing details and light (there was a lofted space with a
fireplace that I fell in love with, but for the fact that it was a
closet), or had terrific landlords (Isaac was a young guy willing to
make some changes for us -- until we gently pointed out that installing a
washer and dryer unit for us would require hiring a plumber to run a
water line). Some of them were horrendous -- like the 300 sf 5th floor
walk up with crumbling brick walls; even with a view over Central Park
it was awful. And then, while waiting between apartments, my gorgeous, genius girlfriend insisted that we take a look at Craigs List.
I'm skeptical. Craigs List? The website where anyone can post
anything, where finding a single item of quality is akin to finding
buried treasure in a mangrove swamp? But given how stressed out we were
by then, and how anxious we both were to just have the whole process
over with, I humored her. We sifted back through a week's worth of
rental listings, seraching for our neighborhoods as key words. On the
very last page was a single, unassuming ad for a one-bedroom apartment
in Morningside Heights. The title and description were well-written and
free of unnecessary adjectives, the photographs were clear and from
realistic angles, the amenities listed were an even mix of what we were
looking for, and the price was in the middle of our anticipated range.
Too good to be true or not, I typed out our standard inquiry and sent it
off, expecting to hear nothing.
Our Perfect Gem of a New Home
Within an hour, I received an email from a young woman named Julie.
While her boss, Jason, was on vacation out of the country, she'd be
happy to show us the apartment he'd listed on Craigs List the week
before. We would be the first to view it, and they weren't planning to
relist until he returned, so we could take our time with the scheduling.
Corrin and I arranged to meet Julie for a walk-through of the apartment
the following Tuesday evening. April 8th turned out to be cold, wet,
gray, and rather morose. Just like us, Julie was early, and greeted us
with a warm smile. She's clearly not in the Real Estate business! -- and
yet just as clearly really likes her boss, and thinks of him as a
genuinely good guy. (Happy employees, and all that.) She took us through
the entire building.
Originally built in 1890 (thank you Zillow), the building was
completely renovated less than a decade ago. Full of newly constructed
condominiums, the building overlooks Morningside
Park and also has two gated, landscaped courtyards available for tenant
use on the adjacent side. The entrance is bright and inviting but
modest, with a small staircase and a clean wheelchair ramp. The mail
room is adjacent to the building Super's apartment, and just behind it
is a large elevator lobby and a wide staircase that runs through the
center of the building. In the basement is a shared community room
(with a full kitchen available for parties), a recycling room, and a set
of storage lockers.
The
apartment itself is a bright, spacious one-bedroom flat on the second
floor. You enter into
the great room, a rectangular space running west to east that the
current tenants had arranged into a formal dining space and a living
room with a playpen for their 4 month old daughter -- and which we'll
arrange with zones for studying, dining, and relaxing/entertaining. To
the right of the door are two closets, one for coats and shoes and
outdoor storage, and one which Corrin has already deemed "the craft
nook" for my yarn. Beyond the closets on the south wall are a pair of
large windows letting in a great deal of sunlight.
To the
left of the entrance and the west half of the great room is a lovely
kitchen adorned with numerous cabinets, a pantry, a dishwasher, full-size
appliances including a gigantic side-by-side refrigerator, and a north-facing window over the sink. Beyond the kitchen
but off of the great room is a tiny hallway leading to a roomy bathroom (also
boasting a north facing window) and a pair of closets. One of those
closets houses a stacking washer-and-dryer, and the other is a linen
closet.
The eastern-most portion of the apartment is the
bedroom, again boasting a pair of closets and a pair of east-facing
windows. I was so enamored with the kitchen, laundry, and closet options
that I didn't pay very close attention to the bedroom, but the current
tenants had positioned a full-size bed, a bassinet for their infant, an
enormous Ikea Storage chamber, and a chair in the room with plenty of
space for us to walk around and explore; I imagine our bed, club chair,
and pair of dressers will be perfectly at home here.
Making the Found Space Ours
Julie was as enamored with the space as Corrin and I were, and was
incredibly helpful. Within 35 minutes of returning home and comparing
what we'd seen against our notes, we called her to indicate our interest
in applying. With our potential landlord out of town, she was tasked
with communicating with us to collect all of our application materials
-- rental history, employment history, work references, personal
references, credit scores and statements, tax forms, bank statements,
and copies of official identification -- in electronic form. After ten
hours of scrambling to collect, scan, and create PDF documentation of
everything requested, we turned it over -- and were approved for the
space 48 hours later.
Jason returned to town last week, and Corrin and I signed the lease
together on April 22nd. While we're still waiting on a precise move-in
date (our lease is effective June 1, but we may have the option of
moving in toward the end of May, depending on the plans of the current
tenants), the hardest part of the apartment search is over. We still
have to find boxes, sort through our possessions, determine which items
we're keeping and which should be stored or passed on to new owners,
pack everything, move it to the new space, arrange furniture, unpack
everything, paint and decorate the space so that it in some way reflects
the fact that two different people with a shared couplehood inhabit the
home -- but the most difficult, most time-intensive, most stressful
part of the shift (at least in NYC) is over.
The Short Version
We have a home in
La Petite Senegal, a relatively new neighborhood on the edge of Harlem alongside Morningside Heights.
We found the apartment without the aid of a broker (and thus without
incurring a $3,500 fee) after nearly six months of research and
searching, because we knew precisely what we were looking for, and were
diligent about following up on leads. The space has everything that we
wished for: a large floor plan; lots of windows with great light and
cross-ventilation; a multi-use great room for dining, living, studying,
and entertaining; a large kitchen for cooking together; numerous closets
and an on-site storage facility for our personal use; a community room
and two locked gardens to which we have keys; a super on site; and easy
access to the subway for my shorter-than-current commute and to Corrin's
office on campus and to a park with community activities (a three
season farmer's market, open-air jazz concerts all summer, and community
service festivals every few months). We have a landlord who is a genuinely nice guy
and doesn't deal with a lot of bureaucratic tape, who is willing to let
us *live* in the space -- painting, decorating, installing hardware,
etc. as we wish while documenting the changes for everyone's security.
The rent is in the middle of our affordable range, which means we don't
need to worry about moving again before Corrin finishes her dissertation,
and the neighbors seem delightful -- many of them are Columbia
affiliates, too, which means we'll have numerous points of contact for
making friends and being sociable.
We are so very happy, in part because the search is over, but moreso
because we have found precisely what we most desire: a home where we can
be content to build the next phase of our lives.
First published at expetesso.com
