Every month, I pay about $3 a square foot for a crummy little apartment on the fifth floor of a former tuberculoses hospital on the East side of this island called Manhattan. I’m not complaining, because it’s one of the best deals around.
For an expatriate Alabamian, the idea of renting anything on $36 annual-square-foot basis was repulsive. But having been here two years, it’s starting to look reasonable. After all, most New Yorkers pay a lot more.
Allow me to illustrate. My apartment costs $914 per month. That includes water, steam heat, and electricity. It also includes roaches, a crazy neighbor who calls 911 once a week, and a fat landlord named “Louie.” It’s only 300 square feet, so that means the roaches, Wagner, Louie and I have become pretty close.
But let’s say we put in an elevator so that I wouldn’t have to trudge up five flights of stairs. That’ll be an extra $250 per month, bub. Or maybe you are fond of closets. So to add a decent size closet, which for some reason New Yorkers call “bedrooms,” will cost you another $1,250 per month.
We’re already up to $2,414 and all we got is a roach filled one-bedroom apartment with an elevator and walk-in closet. Wait! That’s not all! Most New Yorkers like to have a “Doorman.” A doorman is a fellow, dressed up like a third-world country dictator, who stands at the curb in front of your apartment building and hails taxis for you, receives express packages while you’re gone, and says nice things your person as you head out to work.
If you want a doorman, be prepared to shell out another $300 – $500 a month for the guy. And don’t forget Christmas–you’ve got to give the bugger a fat tip and maybe a bottle of Sherry.
I can’t even get myself a bottle of “Thunderbird” for Christmas, so a doorman is out of the question. Instead, I got an intercom system. People who want to leave packages or climb up the five flights of stairs simply “buzz” me. It usually sounds something like this.
–BUZZ–
“Hello?” I say.
“Zzt Flipth Gadzonks Rachet” the person downstairs says.
“Come again?” I ask.
“Frachet blech mohair rickerbocker” they reply.
“Is that you Bob?”
“Rogain noeth groweth zifth gersplats,” they say.
“Or is it an armed terrorist coming to take all my worldly things?”
“Ethzzz” the unidentified party says.
“Okey-dokey, I’ll buzz you up. That’ll be $4.75, drive around.”
–BUZZ–
Okay, so maybe intercom systems don’t work quite as well as doormen, but they’re a lot cheaper. Besides, I’ve met some interesting people that way.
The most expensive aspect of Manhattan is of course, where you are. According to New Yorkers, there are only three things that one needs to consider when buying an apartment: location, location, location. The closer a New Yorker is to nature, the more costly the apartment. For instance: people who live on Central Park West, Riverside Drive, East End Avenue, and Fifth Avenue (streets right next to Central Park or one of the rivers) pay more money for their spaces than do people who live on Third or Lexington Avenue (no park). Incidentally, there is no park on “Park” Avenue, although there is a concrete bunker with a strip of grass growing between the lanes of traffic. Then again, New Yorkers would consider a telephone pole covered in kudzu a tree.
Then there’s the question whether to rent or buy. Buying an apartment up here is a big deal. New Yorkers sometimes laugh when I tell them that my hometown newspaper reports on ditches being dug or trees being cut down. But I don’t let them get away with it. Their newspapers often report on people buying a house. For example, last week The New York Observer wrote a story on my boss and her new digs, “It’s not the most inspiring place: a living room with three odd, stacked windows, an outdated kitchen and no elevator. And it’s across the street from a parking garage. It does have four bedrooms and a garden with a hot tub.”
That’s news? I haven’t seen many articles in The Star News about people who live near parking garages, but then if the house cost $2.75 million, I guess it might make the paper after all–but not for the same reasons.
If you own a house in Andalusia, you’ve a lot to be thankful for. Count your bedrooms and if there’s two or more and can see some trees, with the right New York real estate broker, you’ve got a million-dollar home!
—Morgan Murphy