Space Savers

Searching for Accomodations in the Big Apple

I am writing this column from inside a 10' x 12' box. It is neither a jail cell nor a padded room in an insane asylum, although there are times when either would be both preferable and more appropriate. I am actually writing this column in my new apartment, a fact that provides a smooth segue into my promised analysis of New York City's most famous myths.

Today's myth - "Finding an Apartment in New York City is Hell" - might be the most widely known and universally scoffed at myths of all (outside of New York, that is). A city with a 100 percent occupancy rate? Tiny studios next to housing projects going for more than most people's monthly mortgage payments? Real estate brokers who take 20 percent of your yearly rent as commission? Seven rats for every one person within city limits? Surely these must be exaggerations, created and spread by self-serving New Yorkers in an attempt to scare the rest of us away, right?

Wrong. Actually, it's the medieval practice of placing all trash directly on the sidewalk that's designed to repel the faint of heart (or at least Midwesterners) and perhaps lends conclusive proof to another myth: that New Yorkers would rather live with rats and cockroaches than out-of-towners.

Finding an affordable place to live here in New York City that you don't absolutely hate is about as tough as it gets. Did I mention that I was writing this column from inside a 10' x 12' box? Well, the story of how I came to rest in this box can attest to the depth of this myth's veracity.

When you last read of my ill-fated adventures, I was lying on my back in the living room of my friends' apartment on a Sunday night, contemplating the ceiling fan, the reflection of the setting sun, the idyllic life I had left behind in Chicago and, of course, whether all of this would make a good ending to an essay about getting evicted from a houseboat designed for the elderly. When I finally stood up, I was looking at the prospect of finding a decent, affordable apartment in the next two weeks, or else be resigned to spending a lot more quality time on that floor.

Advice on Step One was almost unanimous: Get a copy of the Village Voice the moment it hits the pavement on Tuesday night at Astor Place. There I would find the most comprehensive listing of available apartments in the city, including non-broker listed pads (i.e. no fucking fee). I was told to bring my cell phone and expect a line that would stretch around the block. This was going to be quite the experience - I even thought about going down there around noon, just to snag a good spot in line. I was going to come out of this a winner, goddamn it.

Before I left, however, a colleague and lifelong New Yorker directed me to the Village Voice website, on which they had listed all of the week's available properties. This cache would be updated at 1 PM on Tuesday - hours before I would have gotten my mitts on a printed copy. It's good to be "inside," I thought. From the site, I was able to make a few appointments and jot down a some open houses. The next day, checkbook in hand, I headed out to find my apartment.

My first appointment ended when the super (who was 20 minutes late) informed me that $1,295-per-month studio was available on a "competitive" lease only. I would submit an application, along with other hopefuls, and the person with the highest income would win. Ten people had already seen the place, plus I would need a guarantor for the lease (someone legally bound to pay the rent should I falter), regardless of income. They were evicting some Gucci hippies, complete with emaciated cat,(pot was everywhere and the two tenants were lying wide awake on two mattresses on the floor when we keyed into the apartment), so I guessed the landlord was done fucking around. In hindsight, it was pretty obvious that Mom and Dad were paying the rent there anyway.

My second appointment, an open house, ended when four other guys and I walked into the $1,395-a-month studio in the East Village and burst into laughter (or was it tears? I can't quite recall). This place (not recently renovated) looked like Hollywood's version of a Middle Eastern holding room for political hostages. Torn-up floor, dirty walls, no light, and fuck knows what in the bathtub. It was as if some militant political group had been trying to ransom members of the opposition but decided to let them go and instead start showing the place, perhaps after reading the real estate section in the Sunday Times. ("These new hostages will pay us to live here, and feed themselves!")

My third appointment ended with me shouting into a two-way cell phone at an Arabic man who spoke no English, who was put on the phone by the 12-year-old, also non-English-speaking Hispanic kid who had shown up to show me the dingy, shag-carpeted $1,200-per-month studio. I was shouting "I'll take it." Either way, no comprende.

After two weeks of subtle variations on the above experiences, I was getting desperate. Time was running out, and I was facing the prospect of imposing on my friends for an entire month if I didn't hook something up soon. So I did the unthinkable: I enlisted a broker.

Say what you want about brokers - that they're smarmy, greedy, invertebrate scumbags - but they are pros. Because within 24 hours, my broker had steered me to a studio for $995, with only one month's security required, in a decent complex, in a nice neighborhood and with a management company that did not require a guarantor. All for a measly $2,000 shit sandwich (the fee), served with a hollow smile.

Sure, the goddamned place is only 10' x 12'. Sure, it resembles a glorified dorm room, with its loft bed, hanging organizers, see-through plastic containers for clothes and IKEA chair (I couldn't find a beanbag). And sure, I don't know if there's enough oxygen in it to support more than one person for more than an hour. But hey, after the experiences I had gone through, I was just glad to get it over with.

A New Yorker, of course, would tell me that I was one of the lucky ones.