02 Jun 06 House-hunting in New York City (pt 1)

Today was an early start. We left for Pearson International Airport in Toronto at 4 a.m. and flew to LaGuardia in New York to start our house-hunting trip. Talk about a daunting task. New York City rents are outrageous. So is the process of finding a place because there is no central listing service. We are fortunate enough to have made a connection with Henry Davis of Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy, the husband of someone that works at Fleishman-Hillard where I will be working.

Roosevelt Island

Henry first took us to a new condo development on Roosevelt Island called Riverwalk Place. It was a great building. We looked at a three-bedroom and a two-bedroom unit. The condo also had a kids’ room, a rooftop party room and an exercise room. We haven’t ever really considered ourselves condo folk, but it was kind of nice and got us thinking.

Upper East Side

Following Roosevelt Island, we made our way to what I think was a three-bedroom open house in a low-rise building. The place was incredibly narrow and really run-down. We think there must have been students living there. But we really liked the Upper East Side. It was close to Central Park and had some great shopping and restaurants. We’ll have to go back there to explore.

Midtown

Late in the morning, we went to check out a “two-bedroom” apartment in a high-rise building about three blocks south of where my office will be. That was pretty disappointing. The apartment must have been a one-bedroom that they transformed into a two bedroom with a crappy, thin wall. And the really stupid thing about it? The small room that would be the kids’ room if a family moved in, was the only access to the 28th floor balcony.

Upper West Side

After seeing this place, we split away from Henry and grabbed some lunch at an Irish pub. Then Henry called with confirmation to see a place on the Upper West Side, right on Central Park West overlooking the Park. This was a great place with tons of character. The apartment had a great living room and two-bedrooms. The only problem was there was no air conditioning. This was something we’d identified as being important to us. Today confirmed this. New York is hot and wet today. In fact, when we emerged from the subway, rain was just hammering the city. This seems to be the case every time we visit New York. We were here last October to see Dead Can Dance at Radio City Music Hall and got completely drenched that weekend.

Stuck in the subway

Following the Upper West Side, we jumped back on the subway to make our way down to see a place in Murray Hill area. One thing we learned is that the New York subway system is unreliable in the rain, at least in rain as heavy as it was today. Flooding meant that some lines we re-routed and others simply weren’t running. We didn’t make it to the open house. Instead we were so delayed that we ended up just walking back to our hotel.

Karyn was such a trooper today. We walked miles today. At 32 weeks pregnant, I can’t believe she hung in as long as she did. By the time we got back to the hotel, we collapsed on the bed. My feet were throbbing. We both took a nap.

When we awoke, we went to dine at Grand Central Terminal. That was pretty cool, sitting in the balcony of the concourse watching everyone speed by and eating some pretty good food.

Of all we’ve seen today, Riverwalk Place stood out as the best, so we asked Henry to follow-up with them and express our interest in the three-bedroom. We’ll see what happens.

I’m sure we’ll sleep well tonight. Tomorrow is another big day. We’re going to make our way to Brooklyn to check out a few places.