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Fixing up a 'Crappy Apartment'

By Justin Rocket Silverman, amNewYork Staff Writer
More stories | jsilverman@am-ny.com

November 15, 2007

It wasn't until I turned 30 this year - with all the symbolism of "growing up" that it entails - that I decided it was time to move out of My Crappy Apartment.

As the first in an ongoing series to explore how the less-gilded New Yorkers live, this reporter will profile the shoebox he called home for three years.

There was nothing crappy about the location, Avenue C and 8th Street, the heart of Alphabet City's nightlife boomtown. On my block alone, there are five bars - along with the fortress-like 9th Police Precinct.

The price was certainly right: $550 a month for one room in a two-bedroom unit. The price included utilities, phone, cable TV and Internet. And so I jumped at the chance to move in after finishing graduate school in 2004. Many of my neighbors on the block were paying three times as much.

The cheap rent, as it so often does, came with a few catches. Chief among them was that I had to vacate the apartment two nights a week for three hours so that the landlord, who worked as a public school teacher, could hold peer-training sessions in my living room.

Calling it a living room is itself a bit of a stretch, as the landlord, who lived in another apartment across the hall, used the whole room as his personal walk-in closet. Any time of day or night, he might swing open the front door and come into the apartment to change clothes or putter around with his stuff.

His own living room was tastefully appointed with wooden furniture and rugs. Mine was a closet and a classroom, without so much as a couch to sit on. It was little wonder that my roommate and I stayed mostly in our respective bedrooms.

It was only by the bedrooms' windows that one could stand at full height. Everywhere else in each of the rooms, one had to stoop to avoid slamming the loft beds above. All in all it made for a rather crunched existence.

But for the chance to live in what is still my favorite neighborhood in New York City and at a price that was easy on the wallet, I simply did my best to ignore the many shortcomings of My Crappy Apartment.

Does your domicile leave something to be desired? Share your story with us and be featured in amNewYork. Email mycrappyapt@gmail.com