"...finding an apartment in New York City is harder than adopting a white blue-eyed baby..."
The Hunt, Jan 2, 2000
New Year's Day at Krazy Coffee, a dog loving coffeehouse on St Mark's Place in the Lower East Side. We still live in Manhattan. While in California, we talked ourselves into Brighton Beach. We flew home on Chrismas night and the next day, we took the F train out to the beach and started knocking on doors. Two hours later, we found a super with an availablility. In a building right next to the Q train, an express train with few stops, and directly in front of a Manhattan bound onramp of Belt Parkway, it seemed perfect.
The super, a Bulgarian in his sixties, said "Da" when Gennady asked if he spoke Russian and they chatted away in the elevator. A elderly tenant asked when he would fix the light in her kitchen because she was an old woman and too short to do it herself. "Soon," he told her in English and then to Gennady in Russian, "what a stupid old bat." He lit a cigarette and the tiny elevator quickly became uninhabitable.
With my new, low housing standard as a yardstick, I can say with a straight face that the apartment was beautiful. I saw no evidence of mice and each bedroom (there were two!) could be sealed shut with a handy device called a door. It was a corner apartment, which meant an extra wall of windows. The living room was the size of our whole studio and the bedrooms were accessible via a long hallway, which would further isolate the sleeper (usually Gennady) from the tv-watching, keyboard-tapping insomniac (me, always). There were four large closets.
At $1400.00, we'd save $500.00 per month on rent. All the windows overlooked the freeway and even though we were six floors above the world and the windows were shut, beeps and honks and zooms were audible. We could convert the second bedroom to a radio station and relay live traffic reports. The oncoming Q train was also visible and if a train were being held at the station like trains alway are when you are in a hurry, we could race out the building and catch the very one we'd seen approach from our kitchen window.
The gold-toothed Bulgarian puffed on his cigarette and explained there was a $1400.00 "broker's fee" which would go directly towards the purchase of another tooth as he was not a broker. Call me tomorrow, he said.
We walked around the nighborhood. A full serice Bally's health club was five minutes away and the tiny Atlantic Coffee House sat tucked in a corner a few more blocks away.
"It's not bad," I said. "I could make it work."
Gennady said nothing as we looked at the building from the platform of Sheephead Bay stop. Gennady never says nothing, so I knew something was up.
"All my life, I wanted to live in New York City," he said. Gennady does not consider Brooklyn to be New York City. "Coming back here feels very emotional. I don't know if I can do it after all."
"Well, it's more for you than me, so that's fine too."
We reached a destination in Manhattan an hour and twenty minutes later and that killed the deal. More three hours a day on the subway for me, because the trains are rare and slow at night, and nearly three hours for Gennady, during the commute, which are the packed and angry hours. We decided to stay in Manhattan.
As if God agreed, Maria of the
Comic Strip left the happy message that I had
three spots that week, including one on New Year's Eve. I have been getting one per week for a long time, and usually they are Sunday or Monday spots, so I was over the moon. The Strip plus three spots at
New York Comedy Club would mean I had four spots on New Year's Eve, in Manhattan. That little slap of acceptance made the next few days of horror bearable.
Finding an apartment in New York City is harder than adopting a white blue-eyed baby and almost as expensive.
On
Craigslist, someone listed their one bedroom, Upper East Side duplex for rent at $1700.00. I arranged to view the apartment and on Thursday night Gennady and I went to 81st and 1st, just an avenue away from the Strip, an ideal location for me. The subletter's friend showed us the place, as she was still away for the holidays. The upstairs led to the bathroom and the bedroom, which was large enough for our bed and not much else. The apartment faced the street, and the comings and goings of New Yorkers were visible from both sets of plantation windows. We loved it.
Let's meet on Saturday, the subletter, Betsy, said Friday afternoon, and make sure you have proof that you make over $100,000 dollars, combined.
We started at midnight on Friday sifting through bank records, 1099's and pay stubs until 6 am on Saturday. I found out from an
online credit service that one credit card mistook my parent's bankruptcy as my own and my rating had been damaged (they promised to fix it in thirty days. That's no help to me now, I shouted through tears on the phone Saturday morning. I'm sorry ma'am, I'm sorry blah blah blah). At Kinko's, at 3 pm, we photocopied and punched holes, preparing to impress the Betsy at our 4 pm meeting. Again, Gennady's parents offered to put up their two Brooklyn apartments as colateral should Betsy and landlord feel safer that way. I put everything in a binder with tabs for easy access. At 3:30, my cell phone rang and Betsy was calling to say don't bother, because she was renting it to someone who offered to pay her moving costs on top of first and security. I was given the opportunity to make an offer of my own, in cash, and I said Bets, thanks but no thanks.
Now we have over 200 financial papers neatly in order and by the time we go through this again, my credit will be pristine.
