It was spring 2001, a different time in a city that never stopped changing. Early May, the streets of New York crisp with still chilly winds but calmly warmed by the sun streaming through the dark clouds finally losing their seige of the skies.
What is it about extremely cold winters that makes them prone to being followed by amazingly beautiful springs? Perhaps all springs are pretty much the same. Perhaps all of this variance from season to season, from year to year is all in our heads.
I got into the habit of taking long walks in my neighborhood in an effort to get to know the area. After a few weeks of exploring I felt like the king of Stuyvesant town. I knew the 14th street and 1st Avenue area well, every store, every restaurant, every little detail.
East Village felt like this not quite dry canvas I was walking around on, I could almost feel my shoes smudging the fresh paint as I was walking around. There were homeless people in parks, people who walked the streets, smelly, drunk, lost, perhaps insane. There were people with jobs and a thousand places they needed to be at like 30 minutes ago, running, rushing, pushing, sweating, stressing. That's the thing with ugliness and stress; they are both kinda contagious. You can not live in the center of ugliness and not become ugly yourself. Same thing applies to stress. You can leave your apartment feeling like a million dollars and with a great love for everything and everyone and in New York City, within 2 blocks you can change your mind and hate the whole world with all your heart.
All it takes is running into one or two negative, angry, bitter New Yorkers on the street and you can ruin your entire day. With such dangers looming on the streets, Manhattan sometimes felt like a field of land mines. Take a wrong step and you could be blow to pieces.
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On 14th Street across from Stuyvesant Town is this pizza joint called: Pete's-a-Place. It was the first thing that caught my eye when my broker and I visited the neighborhood during my apartment hunt. The moment I saw the "cheesy" sign of this little greasy pizza joint I knew I was going to somehow end up living in East Village, perhaps not too far from this place.
And that is almost exactly how it happened. As much as I hated the 14th street, I loved the Stuyvesant town and my beautiful one bedroom apartment in it. My apartment was located in the far south-eastern corner of the development and I barely if ever heard any traffic or street noise, and I loved loved loved that. If I wanted I could be in the middle of Manhattan hell in less than 5 minutes, but when I wanted some quiet, I could have endless hours of it at home. You have to understand that for most Manhattinites with my level of income this was a rare luxury.
It turns out I ate at Pete's-a-place only once. Their pizza was possibly the worst pizza I have tasted since Mr. Gatti's chain pizza. It was the kind of food that you eat real fast because you can not bear the fact that you're actually eating it. When you're hungry and you've spent your fair share of lunch money for the day, you kind of have to eat what you got. And if what you got is the pizza equivalent of a bucket of lard, you have two options, go hungry for that afternoon or you just gulp it down hoping that your body will be less discerning than your taste buds and your sense of smell. I chose the second option that day...
I must have walked by that joint every day for the remainder of my days in New York. Every time I walked by I swear they never would have customers inside. I am surprised that they actually stayed in business. Maybe, just maybe they were some sort of horrible mafia using the pizza joint as a front end to some unheard of way to make a quick buck.
And that is almost exactly how it happened. As much as I hated the 14th street, I loved the Stuyvesant town and my beautiful one bedroom apartment in it. My apartment was located in the far south-eastern corner of the development and I barely if ever heard any traffic or street noise, and I loved loved loved that. If I wanted I could be in the middle of Manhattan hell in less than 5 minutes, but when I wanted some quiet, I could have endless hours of it at home. You have to understand that for most Manhattinites with my level of income this was a rare luxury.
It turns out I ate at Pete's-a-place only once. Their pizza was possibly the worst pizza I have tasted since Mr. Gatti's chain pizza. It was the kind of food that you eat real fast because you can not bear the fact that you're actually eating it. When you're hungry and you've spent your fair share of lunch money for the day, you kind of have to eat what you got. And if what you got is the pizza equivalent of a bucket of lard, you have two options, go hungry for that afternoon or you just gulp it down hoping that your body will be less discerning than your taste buds and your sense of smell. I chose the second option that day...
I must have walked by that joint every day for the remainder of my days in New York. Every time I walked by I swear they never would have customers inside. I am surprised that they actually stayed in business. Maybe, just maybe they were some sort of horrible mafia using the pizza joint as a front end to some unheard of way to make a quick buck.
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No one prepares and nothing for that matter can really prepare you for the ever so treacherous process of apartment hunting in New York City. There are so many things to consider and take into account. First of there is the money you can put out for rent, then where you work, where you party, where you would like to workout, where the subways are, who owns the property, the lease terms, your cool friends' expectations, your parents expectations, your pets, proximity to restaurants and parks etc. The list is endless. This is why it seemed so strange when my apartment hunt took less than half a day. I either had the best broker in town, or I was rushed into renting an apartment, or perhaps both.
New York is a city that has absolutely no patience for people who do not know what they want in life. This city clearly, openly, and shamelessly discriminates against these slow decision makers --their life eventually turns into a trail of poorly made decisions, unhappiness, and misery in the city --eventually they move away and bicker about what a horrible place New York is. I am one of those people. I think glaciers sometimes make decisions faster than I do.
I found my broker through one of my new office mates' recommendation. He and his company Manhattan apartments were helpful but they were not ready and/or willing to spend a week with me while I went through my motions for making a decision.
So one Tuesday morning, John the broker and I went on our apartment shopping spree. I think there is a certain formula these brokers follow every time, and it must work like a charm, cause it sure did work on me. They first show you your worst nightmare apartments, one perhaps at max two of these. Once your expectations are lowered to the point of actually considering Brooklyn as a viable option, they start showing you the good stuff. But beware, the good stuff comes with its own emotional baggage. Every time you pronounce an apartment as one you would consider suddenly all other Manhattannites line up to steal this apartment from you. So just like a good opportunity in life, you have to make the excruciating decision of whether you should jump on the apartment or you should keep looking and risk losing it.
Well I am chicken. Predictably when I saw my dream apartment, I did not even care where it was located: Smack in the center of East Focking Village. I thought hey, at least I was on Manhattan, I was close to the subway --or so I thought, the apartment was huuuuge, and it was brand new for a whopping rent of $2200 per month. Ouch city. I could not imagine what the rent was like uptown.
Once I had made the decision, I needed approval. So I gave my older cousin Memduh a ring and he was rushed to my new address to approve the choice. He seemed to be fond of it. He was actually surprised by how glitzy the interior of the apartment was with comparison to the exterior. The property was located on Stuyvesant Town, a former veterans families project recently acquired and currently run by MetLife. The lease however pricey was very flexible, allowing me to move out almost any time without any serious penalty fees. So if I thought if I absolutely hated it, I could get rid of the place and move on up to better apartments.
John switched to high gear as he took me to the bank, then to the leasing office. The application fee of $500 was put down, then the deposit which was two month's rent (ouch), $4400, then they required me to pay the first month's rent another $2200 and finally there was the broker's fee 17% of my yearly rent --bend me over the barrel, any time now. So within the course of a few hours I parted with close to $11,000. It felt very strange, it felt good. Already a week into my stay in NYC, I was enjoying putting more zeros after digits. This was not a good precedent. This town was going to slowly invite me to live more and more beyond my means -- a pattern that will eventually make my continued stay there financially impossible.
New York is a city that has absolutely no patience for people who do not know what they want in life. This city clearly, openly, and shamelessly discriminates against these slow decision makers --their life eventually turns into a trail of poorly made decisions, unhappiness, and misery in the city --eventually they move away and bicker about what a horrible place New York is. I am one of those people. I think glaciers sometimes make decisions faster than I do.
I found my broker through one of my new office mates' recommendation. He and his company Manhattan apartments were helpful but they were not ready and/or willing to spend a week with me while I went through my motions for making a decision.
So one Tuesday morning, John the broker and I went on our apartment shopping spree. I think there is a certain formula these brokers follow every time, and it must work like a charm, cause it sure did work on me. They first show you your worst nightmare apartments, one perhaps at max two of these. Once your expectations are lowered to the point of actually considering Brooklyn as a viable option, they start showing you the good stuff. But beware, the good stuff comes with its own emotional baggage. Every time you pronounce an apartment as one you would consider suddenly all other Manhattannites line up to steal this apartment from you. So just like a good opportunity in life, you have to make the excruciating decision of whether you should jump on the apartment or you should keep looking and risk losing it.
Well I am chicken. Predictably when I saw my dream apartment, I did not even care where it was located: Smack in the center of East Focking Village. I thought hey, at least I was on Manhattan, I was close to the subway --or so I thought, the apartment was huuuuge, and it was brand new for a whopping rent of $2200 per month. Ouch city. I could not imagine what the rent was like uptown.
Once I had made the decision, I needed approval. So I gave my older cousin Memduh a ring and he was rushed to my new address to approve the choice. He seemed to be fond of it. He was actually surprised by how glitzy the interior of the apartment was with comparison to the exterior. The property was located on Stuyvesant Town, a former veterans families project recently acquired and currently run by MetLife. The lease however pricey was very flexible, allowing me to move out almost any time without any serious penalty fees. So if I thought if I absolutely hated it, I could get rid of the place and move on up to better apartments.
John switched to high gear as he took me to the bank, then to the leasing office. The application fee of $500 was put down, then the deposit which was two month's rent (ouch), $4400, then they required me to pay the first month's rent another $2200 and finally there was the broker's fee 17% of my yearly rent --bend me over the barrel, any time now. So within the course of a few hours I parted with close to $11,000. It felt very strange, it felt good. Already a week into my stay in NYC, I was enjoying putting more zeros after digits. This was not a good precedent. This town was going to slowly invite me to live more and more beyond my means -- a pattern that will eventually make my continued stay there financially impossible.
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My plane landed in NYC on May 3 2001. It was the JFK airport, late in the afternoon. I still had a long ride to New Jersey ahead of me. My company had reserved some lame corporate apartment for me in Jersey City NJ. Here I was moving to NY and I was already knocked off the island on the first night.
I had two large suitcases with me and my backpack. I walked out of terminal one and found the yellow cabs. When I told the guy that I was going to Jersey, he was kind of confused. Apparently the sensible thing to do usually is to fly to Newark airport in Jersey. The ride I was asking for was way more than a cab driver expects when they pull into the airport cab line. He was both confused and happy while trying to figure out how much he wanted to rip me off. I think he had a non-New York moment and told me the truth. He told me the best thing to do was to turn on the meter and then compare it to the fixed fees listed on his sheet. The fees were totaling up to something like 100 dollars and I was worried. I was not even sure I had enough cash.
So I jumped in, the suitcases were thrown in the trunk and we started a long ride through the unfamiliar highways of Brooklyn. We went through Williamsburg bridge and then through Manhattan and then through Holland Tunnel to get to Jersey City. I am not sure it was the shortest path possible. It was getting late, and I did not care anymore. This was to become a pattern in my life in New York. This is a city that puts you in such situations in such urgency, or in such exhaustion that you make the dumbest decisions or most of the time you let the decisions make themselves. At least this was the effect this city would have on me.
Finally I was in front of the corporate apartment and $80 short. I got into my apartment and immediately noticed that I was assigned to a two bedroom apartment with another coworker. I was mortified. Being an only child I have never gotten used to living with others. Something I should probably work on but I never had to --well except for my freshman year in college where they put me up with this guy that was twice my size, ate like a hog and never cleaned his side of the room.
Anyhow, I did not care, I was there, I was tired, I had to sleep and I just jumped into my bed. Next morning I called the office. They were being very laid back about things. "Oh yeah, hi, great that you're here. Oh don't worry about showing up to work, look for an apartment first." I was confused. I thought they would want me in the office pronto. One of my coworkers told me that she lived in the free corporate apartment for a month before finding her own place. She was telling me this as an accomplishment on her part -- it sounded more like a nightmare to me. I needed a place of my own urgently.
So the next day I started calling up apartment broker services. One of my new coworkers had worked with this broker, and highly recommended him. So I gave him a call and made an appointment sometime later in the week. In the meantime I was showing up to the office, trying to get my ducks in a row --find a desk, get to meet the team, get my phone, computer etc working. It was all taking a long time. They could not locate my computer that was shipped from Austin for a day or two and then it magically appeared.
My team was another story. It was strange; something was strange. They were acting a little weird around me, or so I felt. Our supervisor was this thin thin almost emaciated tall guy that scared me. He seemed to be dissaproving everything I was doing, everything I was saying. I kept telling myself it was all in my head and I am sure to some point it was. Later I found out this group of people would never really accept me as one of them.
I had two large suitcases with me and my backpack. I walked out of terminal one and found the yellow cabs. When I told the guy that I was going to Jersey, he was kind of confused. Apparently the sensible thing to do usually is to fly to Newark airport in Jersey. The ride I was asking for was way more than a cab driver expects when they pull into the airport cab line. He was both confused and happy while trying to figure out how much he wanted to rip me off. I think he had a non-New York moment and told me the truth. He told me the best thing to do was to turn on the meter and then compare it to the fixed fees listed on his sheet. The fees were totaling up to something like 100 dollars and I was worried. I was not even sure I had enough cash.
So I jumped in, the suitcases were thrown in the trunk and we started a long ride through the unfamiliar highways of Brooklyn. We went through Williamsburg bridge and then through Manhattan and then through Holland Tunnel to get to Jersey City. I am not sure it was the shortest path possible. It was getting late, and I did not care anymore. This was to become a pattern in my life in New York. This is a city that puts you in such situations in such urgency, or in such exhaustion that you make the dumbest decisions or most of the time you let the decisions make themselves. At least this was the effect this city would have on me.
Finally I was in front of the corporate apartment and $80 short. I got into my apartment and immediately noticed that I was assigned to a two bedroom apartment with another coworker. I was mortified. Being an only child I have never gotten used to living with others. Something I should probably work on but I never had to --well except for my freshman year in college where they put me up with this guy that was twice my size, ate like a hog and never cleaned his side of the room.
Anyhow, I did not care, I was there, I was tired, I had to sleep and I just jumped into my bed. Next morning I called the office. They were being very laid back about things. "Oh yeah, hi, great that you're here. Oh don't worry about showing up to work, look for an apartment first." I was confused. I thought they would want me in the office pronto. One of my coworkers told me that she lived in the free corporate apartment for a month before finding her own place. She was telling me this as an accomplishment on her part -- it sounded more like a nightmare to me. I needed a place of my own urgently.
So the next day I started calling up apartment broker services. One of my new coworkers had worked with this broker, and highly recommended him. So I gave him a call and made an appointment sometime later in the week. In the meantime I was showing up to the office, trying to get my ducks in a row --find a desk, get to meet the team, get my phone, computer etc working. It was all taking a long time. They could not locate my computer that was shipped from Austin for a day or two and then it magically appeared.
My team was another story. It was strange; something was strange. They were acting a little weird around me, or so I felt. Our supervisor was this thin thin almost emaciated tall guy that scared me. He seemed to be dissaproving everything I was doing, everything I was saying. I kept telling myself it was all in my head and I am sure to some point it was. Later I found out this group of people would never really accept me as one of them.
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It is amazing how once a difficult decision is made, it seems to execute by itself. It felt the same with the New York City move. Next thing I know I was called a "sodder" in the office which was affectionately coined office terminology for the likes me that were going to New York. Yes it was true, affectionate or not, I was sodding off, getting the hell out of the horrible project that was draining the life out of me.
There were 15 of us total and I was the last one to move because of my late decision and many project transitioning tasks.
The movers were scheduled, tickets were bought, items were packed, things were given away and soon all traces of my life in the US evaporated from sight right before my eyes. Now I was a nomad, no longer owning a place to call home in Austin and not yet found a new one in New York.
I was intimidated, I was shaken, I was bothered. For me having my own place is the most important thing in the world. Being without one felt like being a slug without a shell, I had nowhere to hide, and I felt exposed, very exposed.
My parents LOVED the move to New York. They hated the long flights they had to take to get to Texas. They figured with me being in New York, we would see each other more often and perhaps get a chance to mend some of the relationship issues that had run amuck in the past couple of years.
Now you're thinking all of this is happening too fast or perhaps you want me to get to the New York bit already. There is so much I need to relate to you before we get to the New York part. I would like to relate this information in a way that does not interfere with the flow of events. So here is a bit of detail we could just glaze over but I think it is important for your understanding of what's going on in my head currently.
As you know I am from Turkey, and being a male Turkish citizen I am required to do mandatory military service some time after graduation from a highschool. The usual duration of the military service is 18 months. You can be assigned to any of the camps in Turkey which means you can get stuck in the worst parts of Turkey in the coldest months of the year. Military service within these parameters is quite difficult and taxing. It really is what makes a man, a man in Turkey. I have never seen anyone come back from military service quite the same.
If a Turkish citizen attends a college be it in Turkey or outside, the military service requirement is postponed until their graduation. Getting a higher ed degree also has it perks in terms of the military service. Citizens with higher ed degrees qualify to do their service in either 8 months as grunt or 18 months as an officer --better living quarters, less hardship, more responsibility, and possibly better treatment. These are great but my generation in my family is a bunch of wussies. We were brought up in quite nice accomodations and we never lacked the basic amenities. Some of us never even camped once. So you can imagine the horror in our minds when we think of ourselves in military service.
Luckily for us, there is a further clause in the law. It applies to Turkish citizens who have been and are currently working abroad. It requires at least three years of continuous employment and a payment of $5000.00 and the service lasts only 4 weeks. As you can guess I started planning for this long time ago.
At the time the New York move came up, I had already accrued both the employment time and the cash to participate in this special kind of militart service. So I decided to pack up in Austin, fly to Turkey, do my service and then fly right back to New York. It was one of the best plans I made.
Military service was not what I expected, or I was tougher than I thought. Most guys in the service were a bunch of whiners and it was suprising to find myself supporting other people. I never thought I would be the strong and calm kind but here I was doing it.
There were 15 of us total and I was the last one to move because of my late decision and many project transitioning tasks.
The movers were scheduled, tickets were bought, items were packed, things were given away and soon all traces of my life in the US evaporated from sight right before my eyes. Now I was a nomad, no longer owning a place to call home in Austin and not yet found a new one in New York.
I was intimidated, I was shaken, I was bothered. For me having my own place is the most important thing in the world. Being without one felt like being a slug without a shell, I had nowhere to hide, and I felt exposed, very exposed.
My parents LOVED the move to New York. They hated the long flights they had to take to get to Texas. They figured with me being in New York, we would see each other more often and perhaps get a chance to mend some of the relationship issues that had run amuck in the past couple of years.
Now you're thinking all of this is happening too fast or perhaps you want me to get to the New York bit already. There is so much I need to relate to you before we get to the New York part. I would like to relate this information in a way that does not interfere with the flow of events. So here is a bit of detail we could just glaze over but I think it is important for your understanding of what's going on in my head currently.
As you know I am from Turkey, and being a male Turkish citizen I am required to do mandatory military service some time after graduation from a highschool. The usual duration of the military service is 18 months. You can be assigned to any of the camps in Turkey which means you can get stuck in the worst parts of Turkey in the coldest months of the year. Military service within these parameters is quite difficult and taxing. It really is what makes a man, a man in Turkey. I have never seen anyone come back from military service quite the same.
If a Turkish citizen attends a college be it in Turkey or outside, the military service requirement is postponed until their graduation. Getting a higher ed degree also has it perks in terms of the military service. Citizens with higher ed degrees qualify to do their service in either 8 months as grunt or 18 months as an officer --better living quarters, less hardship, more responsibility, and possibly better treatment. These are great but my generation in my family is a bunch of wussies. We were brought up in quite nice accomodations and we never lacked the basic amenities. Some of us never even camped once. So you can imagine the horror in our minds when we think of ourselves in military service.
Luckily for us, there is a further clause in the law. It applies to Turkish citizens who have been and are currently working abroad. It requires at least three years of continuous employment and a payment of $5000.00 and the service lasts only 4 weeks. As you can guess I started planning for this long time ago.
At the time the New York move came up, I had already accrued both the employment time and the cash to participate in this special kind of militart service. So I decided to pack up in Austin, fly to Turkey, do my service and then fly right back to New York. It was one of the best plans I made.
Military service was not what I expected, or I was tougher than I thought. Most guys in the service were a bunch of whiners and it was suprising to find myself supporting other people. I never thought I would be the strong and calm kind but here I was doing it.
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