You can’t move apartment in New York without a support team. It just sucks otherwise. If your building isn’t being an asshole about insurance, booking the service elevator, or not moving furniture on the weekends, you’re relocating to a walk up and literally NO ONE wants to navigate a six-foot sofa up five flights of stairs.
Then you’ll run out of packing tape and have to rush to the hardware store 20 minutes before the movers arrive. But they’ll arrive late anyway, because they got stuck in traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. The van will get a parking ticket, it’ll all cost way more than expected, and your favorite martini glasses will break because you packed them in a hurry (who DOESN’T have martinis the night before a move?).
The first time I moved in the city, I threw money at the problem, hiring a company to do all the heavy lifting, and it was still stressful AF. This time, I was on a budget, using a combination of the storage facility’s free shuttle van and six of the very best humans a person could be blessed to know. And it didn’t suck. Not even a bit.
It’s during some of life’s most stressful moments that you discover the true generosity of a person’s soul. Here are five times New Yorkers proved they are among the very best.
1. One friend arrived in the city from Texas and was $400 short for his movers … but his bank’s withdrawal limit was $300. What to do? Standing in the hallway of his new building on the verge of tears, a neighbor passed. “Hey, welcome, how’s it going?” Friend explained his dilemma, and New Neighbor loaned him $200 on the spot. The reasoning: “I know where you live.”
2. Another friend was literally sleeping on the floor, until someone she'd just met at her new job loaned her an air bed until her furniture arrived.
3. Sitting in the middle of his Hell’s Kitchen studio, surrounded by the overwhelming task of unpacking boxes and assembling furniture, DB started to cry. His phone pinged him out of his pity party. “How’s the move?” asked someone he’d met earlier that week at a local bar. When DB explained, Bar Friend came over to take control of the situation. Together, they built his bed, so he’d at least have a place to sleep that night.
4. CW was still recovering from a nasty reaction after his second COVID shot, but he still managed to project manage my move like a boss, cramming a one-bed apartment into a 5x8 storage unit as if it was a simple math equation waiting to be solved (just don’t ask me where to find that spare set of keys I packed in the Fresh Direct bag, kay?)
5. After everything was moved, my support team and I found a cute little Spanish place in my new neighborhood for dinner. The food was incredible, the margaritas strong and, despite our aching limbs, we danced like maniacs. When the restaurant got busy, we moved our dancing to the street.
The learning? Surround yourself with people who turn what can be one of life's most exhausting, stressful days into one that is, instead, filled with laughter, joy and tequila. Have I said it before? I love this city.
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