Well, it took us a while to write here. There is a lot of stuff that has happened – if only this could work as an excuse for us and not make it even worse that we haven’t written. Well.
Meanwhile the impressive golden-sunny New York’s autumn turned into a rainy winter with its frigid winds and gray lack of light. Nothing pleasing indeed. But if you are a bit patient it can still surprise you with a pretty day, from time to time. Even with a snow storm or lovely walks trough the fields of Central Park covered by purely white duvet.
Another important change has been that we moved to a new apartment; to a new area and I guess to a whole new ambiance of our life in NYC. When we finally decided that we do not want to stay in the overwhelming flat at the Upper East Side, the owner informed us that she wants to move back to her place, so our moving out became clear and determined. The question was where to go. So with a lot of suspicion, traumatic memories of previous flat huntings we started the game. The area of research was quite limited with the decision to move closer to the Columbia University and to the West Side Manhattan. Although the main reason was our limited budget (especially limited for Manhattan prices). The unique area affordable and suitable for us became Harlem/Morningside and we visited there a few flats. The beginning was of course stressful: questions about our security numbers (as foreigner “visitors” we don’t have them), strange meetings with real estate agents that never appear or who give misleading information and all the deal with the American taxes, tips, fees that are (almost) never included in the prices written down. But about two weeks later we discovered that to find a new flat is actually easier than to find a good place to print photos!
First we fell in love with the photos of this apartment and couldn’t stand to wait a week or so to see it, then during two days we couldn’t stop asking ourselves will the owners accept our application. Finally we started to move in on Thanksgiving Day. It is a brownstone town house from the nineties of the nineteenth century – from the beginning of the Harlem urbanization boom. One of these townhouses that you probably know from romantic comedies: four floors, three windows on each floor, walkup stairs directly from the sidewalk or through a tiny front yard a bit lower than the street level (our case) and obviously a plasterwork in milk chocolate color with decorative black iron cornice. The first two floors are occupied by owner’s family (cool, eco-enthusiastic couple with baby twins), on the next two floors there are small flats for rent, two on each. Really cozy and quiet (if not one of our neighbors – a “talkative” type) with a classy super tight and arduous staircase. We moved on the top floor, on the street side, windows facing north but with a view to a row of the same kind of townhouses as ours and above them a large skyscape cut by plane traffic to the LaGuardia airport. If not already enough Newyorkish, in addition we have here this kind of a daylight that I found essential for Manhattan – almost never direct sunlight but variously colored air over city roofs line and below it constant game of light reflection of windows’ mirrors, of shadows and its pale light done by colors and surfaces of walls, trees, billboards and so on. And when there is sunlight it’s just this kaleidoscopic light game, always impressing and surprising with its effect.
Of course as soon as we came here with the first bags we found the first downsides of our new home. It was empty, what gave a nice relief after the overcrowded place in Upper East - filled with Victorian roses, plates and pretty small tables of the owner. Here we have just a unique open space, a nice hardwood floor, one uncovered brick wall, fresh white painting, new but classical New York style bathroom (as in the film Annie Hall!), small kitchenette and the best of all – three big windows not covered with trellis or filled with an ugly box of air conditioner. But we also discovered that it was pretty chilly and that there is this old smell of animals and cigarettes and you really can do nothing about it. The nice looking old iron heater starts to go on only when the temperature in the owners apartment falls below 21C and usually it’s a bit warmer at theirs. In addition we were disappointed that this heater doesn’t work in the “European” way just by staying worm… naturally it must also make noise and split steam.
During the long weekend of Thanksgiving we succeeded to bring our stuff one trip after another. We collected quite a lot already at that time. As you can imagine there was a lot of fun and sweat, trips by city bus with our findings from the street (chairs and paintings) with our jasmine bush and broken suitcases. As we fulfilled the flat with our cardboards, papers and so on the emptiness of it became problematic. So there were of course trips to IKEA in Brooklyn and to Target in Bronx for some needful objects (like curtains, extra heater or lamps..) but after having spent a few days on the floor surrounded by the hills of stuff and a few nights spent on the air mattress we started a real, full time hunt on the Craigslist and mainly on the Manhattan streets for some suitable furniture. It’s great that you can find so easily nice stuff here, maybe the before Christmas time was also a good season for it, and finally we got all what we needed. The funniest was probably the adventure with the sofa-bed which we found by Craigslist. We picked it up from a nice American-Dutch couple, from thirtieth floor flat in a fancy building in the West Central Park area. First we got for free the huge plastic bags (we hoped to succeed to put the sofa’s mattress in it) from C-town (one of the cheapest supermarkets), then we got by metro to the sofa’s owners place. At the place, nicely chatting with the sofa’s owners we disassembled the sofa as much as it was possible. Fortunately it was possible to roll the mattress tightly enough to put it into the bags. We came down with an elevator and caught the cab. The frame was of course too big for a yellow taxi, so we left it there by the doormen’s room and drove home with “the essential part”. Then, when we got it upstairs, by frugality we just walked back for the rest. And with it we walked back home along the Central Park. Luckily it was a sunny day and even the walk with the frame was pleasant. I don’t need to tell you how happy we are now about our sofa, do I? But the furnishing is still in progress, it’s just no more full time job. The most recently found chair for example is stubbornly falling apart, so there is the question: try to fix it or.. look for a new one?
L.
