Apartment hunting – day 1 – the bridge to nowhere

The first day of apartment hunting in the city is now complete. It was an exciting day filled with many wild and sordid affairs.* Come, have a seat, and I’ll share with you.

Our first appointment of the day was with one Farnsworth Bentley.** We met him at his office on 20^th street and Park Avenue. We sat down with him, verified what we were looking for and filled out some paperwork. He told us that he had a couple of apartment on the Upper East Side and a couple of apartments on the Upper West Side. That’s pretty much where we wanted, so we were eager to start our journey.

Our first stop was a real estate office so that Farnsworth could pick up the keys to our first two listings. I missed the details of that event because I went into the hallway to receive a phone call. Right as I hung up, Farnsworth walked out of the office and informed us that one of the apartments had been rented and the other was going to be having an open house later in the day, so we would have to wait for that one. In the meantime, he told us, we could look at the apartment on the Upper West Side. This was mildly annoying because we had walked from the office at 20^th to the subway stop at 23^rd, taken the subway up to 51^st and then walked to the office around 53^rd. We now had to walk back to 51^st and take the train down to 42^nd. From here we had to transfer to another train to get to the Times Square terminal. Once we got the Times Square station, we transferred again to get to a train to take us up to the Upper West Side.

Big deal, right? You’re in New York, you’re going to take the subway. This is true, but it was unbearably hot out and we managed to find the only subway cars without air conditioning. And also, an hour had passed and we hadn’t seen an apartment yet. It was going to be ok though, since we were about to see some nice apartments on the Upper West Side. Our first stop was another rental office to pick up the keys. Farnsworth talked to the girl at the front desk and his tone became noticeably more intense. Apparently another broker had the keys to the apartment that he wanted to show us and she was not around to give them to him. He called her on her cell phone and arranged to meet her at 102^nd street to pick up the keys. My ears suddenly perked up because I had never been that far North and had never really planned to. Anyway, that was that, so we walked back to the subway and started taking it up North. We got as far as 96^th street when the conductor announced that the next stop would be 133^rd street. Anyone wanted to get off before that would have to get off at 96^th and wait for the next train. We didn’t want to go that far, so we got off. Farnsworth then decided that didn’t have time to get up there and back in time to see the other place, so we started walked back South towards the other apartment. We walked and walked and finally arrived at the place to see. Farnsworth buzzed to be let in, but didn’t get a response. He tried a couple times and then called the super. His end of the call went something like this: “Oh, yeah, I got your voicemail but I hadn’t checked it yet. The apartment has been rented? I just talked to you this morning. Oh, ok, thanks anyway.”

We walked all the way back up North to the subway station and rode up to 102^nd street. We met the other realtor and got the keys. I was expecting to get back on the train and head South, but instead we started walking North. This was odd because we had specifically stated that we didn’t want anything North of 96^th street, but we just kept on walking. We finally made it to the apartment at 108^th Street and Amsterdam – a place I would not want to live. We walked up to the fifth floor walkup and it was horrible. Utter piece of crap is an under statement. He didn’t even ask us what we thought. We walked through the run down railroad style*** apartment and then gave him the look of “seriously? It’s been over 2 hours and this is all you show us?” He led us out.

We made plans to meet up later at 82^nd and 2^nd for the open house and we went our separate ways. Karie and I killed an hour until our next appointment. For our next appointment, we met a really nice foreign guy and he walked us through what we were looking for, our price range, etcetera. He complied a list of three potential apartments and turned us over to the guy who would be showing us the listings. The guy, Mike, who he introduced us to looked like a cross between Denis Leary and Gary Busey. Yeah, it was weird. Mike lost his chance to be my friend when he revealed his opposition to the subway and made us walk from apartment to apartment. It must have been 100 degrees and we were dripping sweat as we walked around. I can’t convey how hot and terrible it was outside. The only thing I can say is that I consumed 64 ounces of Gatorade and 24 ounces of water and I was still dehydrated and miserable.

Mike first walked us all the way across town to an apartment on 57^th and 9^th. This place was amazing. It was big, it had an elevator, it was brand new. This place had on-site laundry and we would have the top floor. It even had a kick-ass roof deck with an amazing view. Unfortunately, this place was several hundred dollars out of our price range before even factoring in broker’s fees.

We then walked back across town to a 5^th floor walk-up on the Upper East Side. It could only be described as “meh.” It was ok. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible. Moving on…

We then went to another 5^th floor walkup. (Remember how hot it is? Yeah, fifth floor walkups suck) Mike knocked on the door a few times, but no one answered. He backed away and took out his cell phone to try and figure out what was going on. During this phone call a girl poked her head out the door and told us that the open house didn’t start until 4:30. The time was currently 4:00. She required 30 more minutes to sit in her apartment in peace.

We left Mike to kill a half an hour and rehydrate. (Or at least try) 4:30 finally rolled around and we walked back up the flights of stairs and looked at the apartment. Another “meh.” We shook Mike’s hand and walked away. We were quite dejected at this point because we really hadn’t found anything. The only place we liked was way out of our price range. At least we still had Farnsworth’s open house to go to. Where did he tell us to meet him again? 82^nd and 2^nd at 5:00? Hmm…we were currently standing outside 82^nd and 2^nd. I called Farnsworth and asked him if he was planning on showing us the same open house we just visited. He was. I told him that we happened upon it and didn’t need him to show it to us anymore. We made plans to meet up at 6 for another open house.

We went back to Molly and Lisa’s apartment (where I’m staying) to cool off and relax a little before hiking all the way across town to meet back up with Farnsworth. The time came and he hoofed it back across town and stood on the corner for 15 minutes while Farnsworth took his sweet time getting to us. We were hot, we were miserable, and we were in no mood to wait around. But finally he arrived and he took us to a 4^th floor walkup. It was really nice. We really liked it. He then took us down two flights of stairs and showed up another apartment. This one was even better than the one before, was only one flight up, and cost the same amount. We liked it. We really liked it, so we went back to the office to fill out an application.

This company takes multiple applications, so we aren’t guaranteed to get it. Everyone who wants the apartment submits their applications and then the rental company picks the best candidates. We’re going to keep looking at more places, but we’re hoping we just get this place and we don’t have to look anymore. It’s just too hot to look for apartments right now.

*Nothing sordid actually happened. Sorry to disappoint you. You see, there’s this thing that marketing people do where they try to grab your attention right in the beginning in order to peak your interest, but then you find out that it isn’t really that exciting. This is sort of like that.

**Names have been changed to protect people who look exactly like Farnsworth Bentley.

***Railroad style, also known as floor-through, is an old, pre-war layout where you can only enter a room by passing through another room. It is a long, corridor style layout. It would be fine for a one bedroom, but we would have to walk through one person’s bedroom to get to the next. It sucks and we specifically asked to not see any railroad style apartments.