Although I’m sure I can’t be trusted with pinpointing exact dates or even locations (months, years, NYC blocks, and what-have-you), 1989-ish saw two major transitions happen in my life: a move to a studio apartment on 4th St. between Avenues A&B and a job switch from Rolling Stone to SPIN magazine. The first shift happened a few months after the events described in last week’s entry where I described my fail in dealing with and facing the end of my relationship with my roommate. And while his Cadillac was not harmed in the process, my hope that he’d break up with me because of my actions did not happen. I had to be the one to face the facts and make the move.

Many a NYC dweller has described staying in a relationship that should have ended months (years) earlier because real estate in the city was/is so brutal. See Tama Janowitz’s Slaves of New York. But I knew that staying in the apartment on Stanton Street and just retreating back to my original bedroom was not going to be good for anyone so I grabbed the Village Voice every Thursday and combed the real estate listings as quickly as possible given the cutthroat nature of finding, then securing, the first good (or even halfway-acceptable) thing you could find. This was waaaayyy before the internet made looking at apartment listings—complete with photos and semi-correct information—something you could do from literally anywhere. Instead, it went a little like this: Get your pen, circle the possibilities fast, pick up the phone and start dialing, then be willing to show up immediately with a check, ready to give the landlord every bit of your money. An alternative to that was reading the obits, then turning up at the building of the recently departed and ringing the super’s bell. In all of my apartment searches and gets, I’ve been able to work the former example with the most success. So in 1989-ish, I walked the streets around the East Village, which was still within my price range and a neighborhood I knew and loved since it was the only place I’d lived in the city. My Walkman headphones blasted Iggy Pop as I’d turn up at each available rental hoping the place wasn’t too depressing and prepared to hand over first and last month’s rent along with a security deposit. I’ve no doubt I had to borrow this large chunk of money from one of my parents given a savings account was something I’d heard about but never met in real life and my salary was barely there. The possibility of a rental scam was also always on my mind. One especially insidious situation was a super asking for a “key fee,” which basically meant if you gave him/her some cash on the spot, they’d make sure you got the apartment (you can read about it here if you’re curious about old-school real estate badlands).

Eventually, I found the cute 4th Street, third-floor studio, which looked out over a back garden, and grabbed it. Maybe there was an application to fill out? There was a lot of money to hand over, but, ultimately, I signed a year’s lease and got my own set of keys. Living on my own was an absolute joy. This was my first solo apartment ever. My entry into a part of adulthood that felt like a big breath into the future. I can remember a sense of freedom that I could come and go, say and do, decorate and make a mess in whatever way I wanted whenever I wanted. This would be the place where I set up a desk facing the two windows that overlooked the back garden by taking a piece of plywood, painting it black, and laying it over three stacked milk crates anchored on each side. I then put my typewriter in the center. One of the windows had a fire escape and I’d go sit out on it in almost all weather to stare at the back of the other buildings, trying to see in the windows while making up stories about the people who lived there. This particular window, which had no screen, was where a squirrel decided to enter one day. That squirrel apparently had designs on moving in given it was a nightmare involving a broom and a lot of yelling to finally get it out through my open front door, down the stairs, and out the apartment entryway. After that, I got a sliding screen for the window and sometimes I swear I’d see that squirrel flipping me off from the tree outside the window.

That window was also the location of my first break-in. I’d come home one night to find my front door cracked open, the lights on, the screen removed from the window, and my place rifled. As I remember it, I went from cold-sweat shock walking in, thinking how surreal that someone had been there—that is once I’d made sure they weren’t still somewhere in there, which took under five minutes given the size of the place—to a feeling of vague offense that nothing had been taken. My drawers were emptied, desk made a mess, and cabinets opened but that was all. My record albums had been pulled out but apparently nothing had appealed to these burgle-heads. When the police showed up, they seemed (were) bored by my story and told me the intruder was no doubt just looking for cash or valuable jewelry and while of course I was relieved on one level, it also felt like a reminder of just how little I had and how spare I was living. The one valuable cop tip was to make the landlord put a gate on the window, which never happened so I never felt safe again in the space. That was the true crime really: This apartment that held all the promise of my new independence also exposed the fissure of fear that came with being a single person in the city.

So while I would last out the lease, my next spot on 14th St. between Avenues A&B, found courtesy of a friend, would be a one-bedroom with a separate kitchen, albeit with the shower in it, a walk-in closet, although please know that “walk-in closet” is a loosely used term in NYC tenement building parlance meaning a small space with bi-level rods and a shelf. The apartment was a safer space and all mine, mine, mine. This would be the place where I’d live all through my SPIN years, learning how to ignore bill collector phone calls while developing a deeper more dependent relationship with the city. And also the place where I’d light a Christmas display on fire (by mistake) right before serving veal to a vegetarian friend (by mistake). But that’s all to come.