Movin out?

I moved into my apartment on Suffolk and Houston on my birthday - May 1st, 1996 - with my girlfriend at the time, Nikki.  We had lived previously in a mad state of chaos, in a rat-infested, junky-infested, insane party scene of a place on East 5th Street.  Those were lovely times, to be sure, but that is a whole other story.  Lets just say it got too crazy and being the lease-holder and being entirely fed up with the rampant irresponsibility of my compadres, I eventually threw down the gauntlet and announced we would all be moving on.  Everyone seemed a bit shaken up and more or less put off by this sudden proclamation but I was serious - we all had to go!  I was tired of policing the phone bill, dragging blacked-out corpses off the sidewalk and fielding complaints from the neighbors (our band practiced at ear-drum stabbing volume in, of course, the living room).  I have one such complaint in writing which I keep framed for nostalgia's sake.

So sooner or later everyone found a place of their own.  They all sort of paired off and got new places.  Except me.  I had drawn this line in the sand and it was just 2 weeks till move out day, and I was stuck floundering.  Every place I had seen was just too cramped - period.  We weren't coming from a palace, but we did have a huge living room and - how is this possible? - a front AND back yard.  It was pretty sweet.  But it was over.  We had driven it into the ground.  So where were we gonna go?

My beautiful art-punk goddess of a girlfriend was, in keeping with the culture of the nineties, strung out on heroin, and it had become my main goal in life to get her clean.  I asked a friend who was a shady real estate expert, who himself lived in what could have been a stunning apartment on east 10th street - were it not for his hoarding of books, newspapers, magazines and grocery bags.  You couldn't walk through the place.  You couldn't see the fireplace or get to the balcony, but he knew lots about how to get things done so I asked his advice. 

"How am I gonna find and apartment?" I asked.  "We have to move out in less than 2 weeks and I can't seem to come up with anything," I told him.

"Here's what you do, " he said.  "Go out and walk around the Village.  Beat the pavement on the streets you want to live and pop your head into every construction site you can find until you meet a landlord, super or building manager.  Thats the best way to get around the real estate agents.  You'll find a place that way."

So, trusting his expertise in spite of his insanity (he was a practicing thespian in that he could make $25/hour panhandling because his technique was so artful - the picture perfect illustration of the heights of East Village ambition).    I started walking around the blocks near where I lived.  I loved my neighborhood.  Being there already four years, I wasn't quite prepared to make the move over to Brooklyn that so many artists and musicians I knew had made.  I wanted to try Manhattan just a little bit longer. 

One afternoon Nikki and I poked our heads into a construction site on east 3rd.  I asked the guy there about the apartment they were renovating.  He told me there was a 62-person waiting list.  I couldn't even imagine what that meant.  It was just a crappy East Village apartment.  This was the time when things had truly begun to change.  And I just was starting to realize it.  Rents were sky-rocketing and everyone from everywhere else seemed to be moving into the East Village.  And it was becoming less and less of what it was when I had moved in just 4 years ago.  When I moved into east 14th street in 1992, I never ever saw a "well-dressed" person on the street.  Now you could see folks in suits and loafers popping out of apartment doors with their briefcase in hand - scurrying off to Mid-town for their 9 to 5.  It was even strange to see people rushing in our neighborhood, unless it was a couple of junkies doing that manic "fast walk" to cop a fix. 

Back out on 3rd street, I began to feel a little down.  "What had I done?"  I had a great apartment - a huge place - but it was $2000 a month and there was no way I could afford it.  I could do about $900 a month but I couldn't count on Nikki to bring in anything - she could never hold a job, much less get one. 

But I persisted.  We saw a tall older guy moving some stuff into a van and I asked him if he knew any landlords around.  He said, in a broken Russian accent, "That guy right there!  He is landlord.  You talk to heem.  He is Tomey."

"Tomey?" I said as I approached the other man.  "Hi are you Tomey?"  He turned his pleasantly weathered face my way.  He had incredibly light sparkling eyes and a thick shock of bright white hair that reminded me of my grandfather's.  It turned out his name was actually Tommy (not Tomey) and he was an old Italian man with an pleasant demeanor.  He smiled widely when he saw Nikki, with her pretty vintage dress, and bright red lips under her Marge Simpson vertical stack of blonde dreadlocks as she hopped about child-like in her cute rubber goulashes.  "Was this 80-year old guy flirting with my girlfriend?"  I couldn't have too surprised because Nikki had something about her - she exuded a playful sexuality that she could not hide.  I remember walking around with her and men, women, kids and dogs would all stare at her with wide-eyed wonder.  She was always being approached - even as I invisibly stood with her, holding her hand.  It was kind of annoying at times but I had considered the pros and cons and I was in it for the long haul.  "If they only knew what I have to deal with," I would often think.

He liked us - or maybe just her - and told us, "I have a place for you.  You're gonna love it."

"How much is it?" I asked being the practical one in this situation.

"Its $1100 a month," he said.

"Ah well, no thanks," I said.  "I can only afford 900."  I had looked at my finances to whatever degree I was capable of doing so at the time and determined $900 was the most I could do.  And that felt like a lot.  We were each paying about $360 on 5th street. 

"Come look at it first," he insisted.  "You will really love it.  And If you want to take it I'll give it to you for $1025."  He seemed to really want us to move in.

I was reluctant but we followed him across Houston street - a place I had rarely ever been at that time - and up into an old tenement building.  When he opened the door to the apartment, our eyes popped open and and our jaws dropped.  It was beautiful.  There were big windows in every room, flooding the place with light.  The ceilings were high and the parkay floors were gorgeous.  He knew we would love it and he seemed to be - in a very clean sweet way - vicariously enjoying the thrill of the idea with us. 

It was pretty obvious.  We would take it and find a way.  (I would find a way.)  Tommy picked up a Chinese food menu off the floor that had been slipped under the door and handed it to me.  
 

"Write your name and number down on this," he said.  "You're not gonna screw me for the rent, are you?"

"No!  Of course not!  This place is amazing!  Thank you so much!"

It seemed unreal.  I will never forget lying in bed with Nikki for the first time after having moved in, just staring straight up at the ceiling in disbelief.  We had really done it.  We had moved into an amazing new apartment.  We were so young and full of dreams.  We were gonna get her clean and have a perfect little domestic life here in this spacious, light-filled 2 bedroom apartment on Houston street.  We were on our way.  And we couldn't get over the feeling.  It was exhilarating.  

So here I am - sitting int he very same living room that I first walked into that day.  I've been here 15 years.  I have a great rent but my landlord has changed.  The sweet old fella who rented that place to me back in the day has since passed on and his son has taken over.  The son is different from his dad.  He's not a bad guy - but he ain't sweet - thats for sure.  He is a stressed out maniac who doesn't really want to be the real estate mogul that his inheritance has asked him to be.  He would rather be at his house in the Hamptons or cruising around LA in his giant SUV acting like a big producer or something.  Who knows.  But one thing is for sure.  He wants me out.

He has told me in no uncertain terms that he is sick of me being behind on my rent - which in all honesty had happened from time to time.  But even though I've paid up all my back rent and been right on top of it for a good while, he is not impressed.  So I've been getting these official letters from his lawyers - threatening me with trumped up charges - like "you do not actually reside at the premises" bla bla bla.  So I have a lawyer - an angel actually - who works with artists and helps them in situations such as this.  She slashes her rate and does whatever she can.  In this case - since he really wants me gone - and has threatened to (and I quote) "Lawyer me to death" - we are hoping to reach some sort of agreement. 

We've gone back and forth a hundred times trying to figure out the best arrangement.  At first I said, "Hell no I won't go!  This is my home and I'm not going anywhere."  He offered me a meager buy-out of the lease - hardly worth considering.  I dug my heels in, lost sleep and made myself miserable at the thought of leaving.  My landlord et al did not seem to budge.  I even spoke with him personally a couple of times and it went nowhere.

But at a certain point I asked myself, "What am I fighting for?  Sure its a great apartment.  That is, if you don't mind the incessant traffic, the insanely loud construction that has been going on since the day I moved in 15 years ago, the drunken reveler on the street at night and the crazed rants of domestic violence that erupt on a regular basis.  They tore down the building across from me and that was fun.  Now their working in there as well as tearing up Houston street - a giant linear cavity that stretches all the way along the length of the 2 blocks surrounding my apartment.  The jack-hammering and rumbling of machinery never ends.  The steel plates that cover the wound clank and bang as the monster trucks that barrel over them do the same.  Sometimes the noises have been so loud - that spine-crumblingly deafening "metal on metal" bang - that I have shot up in bed, eyes wide with fear, fresh from a dream into what I was sure for an instant was the Apocalypse.

And so I asked myself, "How long do I REALLY want to live here?  In eight years I'll be 50!  Is this where I see myself at that age?!" 

And of course suddenly I hear the echoes of a thousand fear-based East Village conversations that go something like this: "Never let go of that apartment.  All you have around here is your rent stabilized status.  If you let that go, you're done.  Where will you go?  Brooklyn?  New Jersey?  Harlem?  You'll be so disconnected you won't matter any more."  It goes on and on. 

I know its hard to find a new place.  But aren't we supposed to look forward to something better than what we have as opposed to feeling that this is the best its ever gonna be and - sure its not perfect but - its worth it!  Sure, its loud and smelly and on an ugly block with no sort of neighborhood.  And sure, the new people in the building won't even look at each other much less say hello.  But we are fighters!  and we hold onto what we've got for dear life!

But I've started to look at it in a different way.  I love my apartment.  And after 15 years I finally feel like I have it just the way I like it.  I have the right furniture, the right paint job, everything is in its place and it feels just right.  And guess what that means?  It means its time to go. So we are making arrangements that sometime in the next 3 years I will be gone.  Is it a little scary?  Of course.  But I don't wan to spend my time in court or with lawyers.  How insane is that???  That is not reality - not in my world.  I don't need to be tied to a specific building or set of rooms.  I know there are all sorts of amazing opportunities out there in this big city - this big world.  Maybe I'll travel for 5 years and have no apartment in NY.  Maybe I'll move to the country and become the farmer I was raised to be.  Maybe Oriah and I will move to Italy or Ethiopia.  I refuse to put limitations on myself.  And I refuse to base my future movements on a foundation of fear - the fear of lack.  What if this is the best I can ever do?  I should keep it just in case!  Bullshit.

I realized something about myself.  I can take this circus anywhere.