NYC or Bust!

So the renewal lease for our apartment came in the mail the other day. While there are many upsides to our apartment, there are also downsides.

Location wise, we are in a decent area. While our immediate neighborhood is pretty quiet and doesn’t not have a whole lot going on, we are close to a lot. Being in Western Queens give us easy access to Manhattan and we are within 10 - 15 blocks of everything we need. Our place is less than a block from the subway — it doesn’t get much better than that.

We like our building. All of the people who live there (at least those we have met) are friendly. For the most part it is quiet at night so we can actually sleep. Well, except for the lady who live above us who rearranges her furniture at least 3 nights a week at like 1 am.

On the downside our place in tiny. We really had to adjust from living in our seemingly huge apartment in Milwaukee, to something the size of a closet. I never thought I would be sleeping in a lofted bed and have to use a step ladder to go to bed when I was this age. I guess that is the price you pay to live in NYC.

Overall we have decided to stay where we are for another year. We really do not have the time or the patience to go out and look for a new place and then have to deal with the whole broker, broker fee, security deposit, first months rent thing again. Not to mention having to figure out the logistics of moving all of our stuff when we do not have a vehicle…

At this point I am just hoping a bigger apartment in our building opens up sometime soon. It would be so nice to actually have a bedroom, kitchen and a living room again instead of a bedlivkitroom!

I started this post long ago…. as we have said we made it, but it has been crazy so we haven’t had time to write. But here is the post of our apartment search.

So Maz and I were in NYC last week hunting for apartment. After days of checking adds, calling, seeing places, and e-mailing people we finally found a place. I will admit that this week was probably one of the most stressful weeks I have ever had; surprisingly I only broke down in tears once. When we first arrived in NYC I was pretty confident about finding an apartment. I didn’t think it could be that hard. I figured if millions of other people had done it, so could we. (more…)

Since my last post long ago we have made several steps towards our move. We finally picked a hostel to stay at during our visit in August. Instead of the Jazz Hostels we decided to stay at the Virginia Guest House in Spanish Harlem. Upside… we get a room to ourselves for only about $50 more than an 8 bed dorm at the Jazz Hostels. Downside… in our 7 night stay we have to switch rooms 4 times. Oh well. I will let you know how it goes.

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Looks like Mariesie and I are going to New York City for a week in mid-August to hunt for an apartment. We also hope to get some interviews for jobs while we are out there. We will have one week to get a line on jobs and get an apartment. It’s not a lot of time, so we’ll have to be well prepared ahead of time.

We purchased our flight to NYC from JetBlue. The airfare was reasonably cheap. The plan is to stay in a hostel while we are in NYC. I’ve been looking at JazzHostels as a possible place to stay. We want to save as much of our cash for actually moving out there as possible. I’m hoping that the hostels in New York don’t suck, as I’ve never been. I’ll let everybody know how the discount airline and the hostel stays went in future posts. It will be an adventure, thats for sure.

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Lately I have been trying to look for jobs in NYC or the surrounding area. I have a master’s degree in sociology and currently work for a consulting firm doing program evaluation and design, strategic planning, and program assessments. The firm I work for deals mainly with health and human services and contracts with non-profits and local governments. I really like the work that I do and would love to find something similar in NYC. I am hoping to find a position that focuses on policy research and program evaluation in the area of poverty, human rights, or homelessness.

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