A Brief History

Four months had passed since I first laid eyes on her. I put the key in the door, swung it slowly open, and stepped into her foyer. The furnishings that I had seen in late October were gone. Nothing but bare walls, open floor space and kitchen appliances remained. The entire process was dragging out to the point of frustration. The deal was simple enough, buying a co-op apartment in Manhattan…

My girlfriend at the time (now happily my wife) and I had been sublet-hopping since arriving in the city near the end of July, 2000. I was returning to New York City after a two-year hiatus, so I had been previously educated in the hassels of the NYC’s housing market.

Our entry point, arriving by car from a cross country trip, was West 83rd Street. A friend of ours has a rent-stabilized studio apartment that she is almost never in. She had a two-week chunk of time between long-term sublets that we took advantage of. It’s a nice enough place. Not very much light but well laid out. There was a level change that set the “bedroom” apart from the main space. The bathroom was in good shape and a decent size for a studio. The kitchen was one of those horrible teeny tiny kitchens that so many New Yorkers make do with. Creativity had utilized every possible space saving notion and our friend had stories of serving six people a Thanksgiving dinner from its confines, but New York is kitchen-challenged, no doubt about it.

We then took a one-month sublet from a lighting designer friend of mine. Again, a studio with some charm. Exposed brick wall. Fireplace that didn’t work (but looked nice anyway). Loft bed to save space. Crappy bathroom. Non-existent kitchen. It was on First Avenue and First Street, a great location, but it had BUGS!! I mean them New York cockroaches that rearrange your furniture. My girlfriend/wife was not a fan.

My task was clear. GET US OUT OF HERE!. I immediately went to “The Equity Board” which is located in the lounge of the Actors Equity building on West 46th street, just off Times Square. It’s a place where actors post sublet and roommate listings. These days things are online but way back when you would go to the lounge and scan the 3 by 5 cards for anything you could afford.

We found a Hell’s Kitchen sublet on 45th street between 9th and 10th Ave for eight weeks. It was a decent place, sublet by a fairly neurotic middle-aged actress heading off to do a ‘regional’ gig. It was a well kept railroad apartment with that kind of charm that can come from exposing a brick wall or two, carefully lighting the 80 percent of the apartment that gets little or nothing natural in that department, and making the best of a crappy bathroom. Short of breaking out the sledge hammers, she had made it a nice place. It was a rental, so why would one remodel? That is the rub for most folks in NYC.
We had been scanning the listings on the online version of the Village Voice in advance or our scheduled homelessness. Finally we got a bead on a long term sublet. Six whole months! It was a little studio apartment on east 83rd street between First and Second avenues, alittle east of the money but within walking distance of great east side restaurants.

SIDEBAR: From 1984 to 1990 I wouldn’t go above 14th street cause I’d get these horrible nose bleeds. If I HAD to travel north, I’d stuff cotton in the nostrils and suffer. As time passed I slowly acclimatized to lands above 14th street. The upper west side became tolerable but the east side was and has remained a foreign land. It’s not that it doesn’t have its attractions, but at the end of the day you want to go back to where your roots are, where your tribal identity gives you that warm fuzzy feeling.

The college age girl we rented the 83rd street place from had returned to Florida. She seemed a little nutty but not surprisingly so. It all began to unravel when we caught wind of the fact that she wasn’t paying the rent. My guess is her father forced her to abandon New York partying for something slightly more promising. I’m sure she figured that the security deposit and the last month rent she had given the landlord would square with the last few months rent not being delivered. The landlord didn’t seem to agree. Leigh and I were on notice to find something else and fast. It was during those frantic months that we put out feelers to everyone we knew that we were looking for an apartment in New York City. My expectation was to get another long term sublet, or if we were really lucky, to stumble upon our very own lease. And then came a phone call from the wife of one of my best friends with a lead. And so I paid a visit to Haven Avenue in Washington Heights. My nose was spraying blood, like I’d hit an artery.

What I thought I was viewing was an apartment that was being rented by a couple who wanted to move out and needed someone to take over their lease. Fair enough. During the tour of the place (ok, it’s 600 plus square feet, “tour” is stretching it) the guy said, “listen, if your looking to buy, the guy that owns this place wants to sell”. Buy? A completely foreign idea. I scrambled quickly and realized that I had to do it if I could.

That visit was in late October of 2000. We didn’t move in until early March of 2001. But for a few months before that I had the keys to the apartment and the tenants had moved out and I would go over there and sit cross-legged in the middle of the floor and draw in my mind. With a few adjustments along the way, I have built those imaginings.
Here is a lovely image of what I have accomplished so far to leave you with.




Isn't it beautiful?