New Yorkers tend to assign outsize importance to things that people in the rest of the country take for granted. After all, what other American city would inspire an entire novel about parking? We regail one another with tales of Solomonic choices between the 6 and B at Bleeker Street to get to 50th and 5th (there is no right answer) and argue over who has the smelliest super.
All those things aside, we have one overriding obsession: real estate. From the $20 million mansions between 5th and Madison, to the rent controlled Upper West Side Classic Six, to the squalid sixth-floor walk-up, the sheer variety of rents and living situations available make it a source of endless conversation. Add to that the sneaky agents, astronomical fees, Craigslist bidding wars and nutty neighbors... well, it's nearly impossible to tak about anything else sometimes.
This topic is especially sore this morning because I went to a cocktail party at the Upper East Side apartment of a friend of a friend who works in the nonprofit sector. She has no stock options and no bonus, but she has a flat-screen TV bigger than my refrigerator turned sideways, a piano and furniture that looked like it all came from DWR ("within reach," my ass!). How did that happen? Oh wait, I know just how, and it rhymes with "must bund."
My apartment is a different story entirely. If I hated a person as much as I hated this apartment, I would seek professional help. It's a sublet filled with someone else's uncomfortable furniture. There is no desk, so I type on a TV tray pulled up to a loveseat that is sloped by years of use in just such a manner as to create maximum back pain in minimum sitting time. The box on which the TV sits is decorated with the same contact paper I protected my science textbook with in 5th Grade. The shower head is aligned perpendicular to the tub and whines for the first five minutes it's on. The one benefit of the tiny bathroom is that you can hear the TV loud and clear from the shower, so the whining is usually mitigated by the soothing dulcet tones of Pat Kiernan mocking the Post or Dr. Sanjay Gupta telling me that I'm fat. Up until last night, my AC ran for about four minutes before tripping the circuit breaker. Entertaining guests? Forget about it. There is hardly any seating and no air circulation. It's at least another grand in rent down the tubes before I have a party.
For all of this - this "steal" in the middle of the UES Soylent farm - I pay more than twice what I pay in Chicago for a lake view, a doorman, a cedar closet and a dozen other amenities I wouldn't even dream of looking for until at least my third year as an associate.
When I move back for good, I will probably shell out a little more for a place that suits my status as a BigLaw lawyer. Still, it drives me batty. Batty enough to talk about it nonstop, just like everyone else.
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