The slow creep northward

So how does one end up at the top of the island without developing vertigo? Well, for me it was a gradual thing. I first moved to the city in 1994 and shared a railroad apartment on West 43rd Street with 2 male roomates. It was cheap, it was fun and after a year I had to get out of there. I had roomed with women in college, with men post-college, and I finally decided that both genders had their issues and I'd prefer to live alone. So I decided to look for an apartment in Manhattan (studio or 1BR) that I could afford by myself. At the time I had a decent waitressing job but, of course, was struggling and I wanted to pay around $500/month. Even then, finding a solo place for that amount in Manhattan was pretty impossible. My broker actually laughed at me. In the end, I had to come up in price to $595 but I found a bright, clean and not-too-cramped studio on Manhattan Avenue and 103rd Street. But I hesitated. I felt I was moving to the ends of the earth. With the exception of one visit to a bar near Columbia U., I had never been that far North and no one I knew lived there. Friends were shocked I was going up so high. Moreover, the neighborhood was a bit sketchy for my 22-year-old single, white self. The broker reassured me that while some characters might try to sell me drugs on 103, the neighborhood was safe and a Rockette had just moved into the apartment below mine. Still, there was a dicey housing project across the street and I would be one of very few white people in the building. I guess what ultimately sold me was the super. Smitty was probably in his mid-50's at the time with an endearing chuckle and something very fatherly about him. I felt reassured. I signed the lease and stayed 5 years.

I loved that studio and that building. And as the years passed I watched the neighborhood change around me. More and more people that looked like me were moving in and new business were springing up on Broadway. People were getting priced out of the Upper West Side and suddenly the invisible line above 96th street started to fade and the 100's up to Columbia became inviting. I was thrilled but I was outgrowing my studio. Mostly I was sick of sleeping on a futon couch and wanted a real bed and real bedroom to put it in. Sadly, my neighborhood had gentrified so much that I couldn't afford a one bedroom in my beloved building. And so, it was time to move once more. Again, I wanted my own place in Manhattan, but this time I hade to have either a 1BR or a very large alcove studio and I didn't want to spend more than $700/month (I had a real job at this point but still was not making tons of money). Again, I had set myself a ridiculous goal, but I was determined. I was pleased with how things had turned out on 103rd street and I figured I simply had to find another cheap neighborhood that was "on the edge" and wait for it to gentrify. I considered myself a pioneer! And now that I was 27 and had lived in NYC for 6 years, I was much less afraid of the grit. My comfort zone had widened so I was more willing to consider neighborhoods and buildings that I would not have 5 years earlier. This is how I came to live in a dump on 139th Street.

The new apartment met my criteria-it was around $700/month and had a large sunny bedroom with a southern exposure. And if you leaned the right way by the kitchen window you could even get a glimpse of the Hudson. I had a river view! But the apartment was not exactly nice. It had an ugly linoleum floor that I despised and was just generally not very appealing. The building was worse--dirty, urine-scented hallways, bullet holes in the stairwell windows and teenagers selling weed and lord-knows-what-else out of the lobby. Once again, I was one of only a couple of white people in the building and once again I was reassured by the super--a sweet Latin guy in his 30's who lived with his sweeter wife and new baby. If it was safe enough for his family, I thought, then I could live there too, and remember, I was a pioneer! I was convinced it would only be a matter of time before everyone else moved north again. So I waited. I held my breath. There were encouraging signs like when a college acquaintance moved in a few blocks from me. And then, the holy grail of gentrification appeared--one day, there it was across Broadway--a Starbucks! This is it, I told myself. Now my friends will start moving up here and I will be vindicated! But they never did. I lived there for 3 years and the neighborhood never changed. In the meantime, I started dating the man who would become my husband who was subletting in Washington Heights and that's when I realized what was happening. The gentrification had moved north again all right, but it had pretty much skipped from 126th Street to 181st! In order to stay ahead of the curve I would have to move EVEN FARTHER NORTH!

So I went out on tour for a year and the week before I left to go on the road I fractured my finger wrestling my wallet back from some guy who was trying to rob me on the subway platform at 137th street. A perfect goodbye to that neighborhood. A year later, I was back from the road and had saved up a bunch of cash (I held no lease while I was touring). My soon-to-be fiancee and I were getting serious and we found a six-month sublet in midtown while we figured out our next move. We decided to buy a one bedroom. We both liked the Washington Heights area where he had been subletting previously and I was still determined to stay in Manhattan. We knew we could probably get the most for our money way uptown in the Heights or in a neighborhood right above it that we'd been hearing about called Inwood. So we searched. Or I should say, I searched. He was working crazy hours and I was temporarily unemployed so I previewed all of the apartments. I finally found the one I wanted. Unfortunately, on the only day he was available to come see it, the broker was not working and couldn't get us access. I dragged him up to Inwood anyway. I showed him the building from the outside. It was on Indian Road and the front door literally opened onto Inwood Hill Park. We sat in the park and stared at the river. My husband is an outdoorsy type from the South and really values being near nature. He was bowled over by the huge park and especially the building's proximity to it. Even though he had yet to see the apartment itself, we pretty much decided that day to buy the place.

The day of our final walk through before the closing was in early November 2004. All the trees were brilliantly colored and the farmers market was a cornucopia of Fall's harvest-apples and cider and pumpkins! The air was crisp and dogs and children bustled about. The ballplayers were squeezing in their last games before the weather turned cold and bat cracks rang through the air. We joked as we ambled around Inwood on such a glorious day, that our real estate brokers had hired all of these people as extras to convince us that buying in the neighborhood was the right thing to do. It surely was. Our migration North finally ended and we have been deliriously happy here ever since. When just 2 years after buying our apartment we learned that I was pregnant and we needed more space, we migrated East instead...but just 2 blocks East! At least for now, Inwood is home-- our son's first home--and we are where we belong.