UWS to the LES

(After a month-long hiatus, I'm bringing this blog back, by popular demand. Molly, this is for you!)

If you can't decipher the title of this post, you're definitely not a New Yorker. No, I'm not starting a rap career, allow me to translate: Upper West Side to Lower East Side. What does this mean? I'm moving! To the opposite quadrant of the city (which is where I seem to spend all my time anyway - either that in or Brooklyn, which is near the LES). Sabra from Austin and I are going to be roommates. She was up here for a month-and-a-half already this summer and we palled around a bunch and decided we'd be compatible, so we're going to live together. 

Since Sabra's in Austin right now, I'm handling the apartment-hunt. In 95-percent humidity I ventured out this week to see all manner of subpar accommodations: dark, living room-less warrens on wonderful streets in the East Village. Neck-breaking fifth-floor walkups that proved, dusty, dark and priced higher than we could really afford. And one beautiful place, airy and oh-s0-out of budget - and with only one real bedroom. ("Here's where you'd put the pressurized wall," said the broker, gesturing at the small living room that would be converted to a second bedroom).  I finally had to kiss dreams of living in the East Village goodbye. The only way to do it affordably seemed to be to forgo a living room, and since we plan to throw all manner of fabulous parties, that would never work.

So, the Lower East Side it was - the up-and-coming (i.e., rapidly gentrifying) area just below the East Village, and even that was mostly out of budget. Until I happened across a post on Craigslist the other day -- a bel0w-market rental, currently being remodeled, on a quiet street three blocks from the subway and a couple of blocks from clusters of hip shops and restaurants, decent-sized bedrooms, both with closets - and only on the second floor, not the fifth.

So, after much sticker shock and agonizing, I've given a deposit, turned in my application, pledged begrudgingly to pay a broker a whole lot of money, and signed away my first-born should we break the lease -- all in a day's work when you're on the trail of a New York apartment. Wish us luck!