MAPPING PEAKS

Coming to New York and finding an Apartment Well it was early May last year, 2020. Apartment hunting was a 4 week stint. Back and forth from Boston. Stayed with a friend on his couch in Manhattan. Then early up each day, seeing 4 apartments per day, with plenty of breaks to try the great New York coffee and street food when I could. The world famous Jewish deli, Katz,located at 205 East Houston Street, was a must on my agenda. Had been there once with my grandfather, who lived at that time in the Bronx, 20 years ago. Anyway Katz's legendary pastrami was an active agenda point on the third day of hopeless apartment shopping. Taking in their great pastroni sandwich after standing in line for 20 minutes, I was very tired and a bit downbeat that day because the apartments I had viewed were either cheap for a reason ( faced a brick wall over an alley, or had no place to put a couch and entertainment center because the kitchen area was listed as a "room" etc, etc) or were so expensive that I would need to have 2 or 3 strangers to share it with to distribute the costs. And that would at the cheapest be $1000 per room. My budget was $1800 monthly. Sharing would be a solution. But I wasn't convinced finding a stranger would work. Nothing was turning up. Eventually my friend, who came to join me at Katz's, said he knew a friend who was looking for an apartment and suggested we share. I had found an amazing apartment that was really roomy with a long lengthy corridor ( actually they called it a room) and 2 other spacious bedrooms in a really nice part of Queens. It was a residential neighborhood and had a really nice look about it. The cost: $2400 monthly. But if we split the costs! My friend phoned his friend. That was the turning point, sitting there in Katz's. Think my grandfather ( now deceased) helped a bit. When I was at my lowest ebb. Can't help thinking of that scene from Rocky V-

'"Look at that. See that? This here's the favourite thing that I have on this earth.And Rocky Marciano give me that.

You know what it was? His cuff link.

And now I'm giving it to you.

And it's gonna be like...

Like an angel on your shoulder to you.

And if you ever get hurt and

you feel that you're goin' down,

this little angel

is gonna whisper in your ear.

He's gonna say

"Get up, you son of a bitch!"

"Cos Mickey loves you"' My grandad's favourite place was Katz's.

The next day we agreed to meet up, me my friend and his friend, and we toured the apartment once more. We even got the landlord to agree on a lowered price. Because his asking price was $2400, it meant, said my friend's friend he would be willing to take less. The asking price is always the optimal not the least wanted- true! We said we would move in for $2200 monthly. It was a deal! It meant $1100 each. I had $700 to spare. Well, it would be used on all kinds of stuff- will relate more on the costs in a later blog.Anyway, the apartment has ( because I'm in it now) a great wall cabinet, that's white with lots of shelves. That's in the main room. Can fit books and cd's ( still have lots) on the outer visible shelves, and everything else miscellaneous in the inner cupboards. One of the great things about this apartment is the space. The middle hallway room, we've used as a coffee spot, with a brown leather sofa and dark small table and black metal sideboard with espresso machine. It overlooks a large, almost floor to roof window.

The ceiling right above has a beautiful plaster relief. Apparently this area is know for its old-world charm, especially in the day when movies and television shows were shot in this area.

Movies shot in the area include Spider-Man, and some television shows Blue Bloods, Gotham, Person of Interest, White Collar.

Back in the day. There is no shooting going on now.

More on the apartment in my blog--to come.Thanks for reading. Leave a comment if you like. See you next time, cheers, James

(Thanks to Taryn Elliott, Luis Dalvan, Liza Summer, Vlada Karpovich for the beautiful photos. Tried to get some of my own of New York, but I have yet to take a really great pictures)