Institutional Real Estate
So Columbia U’s housing department is officially known as the “Department of Institutional Real Estate”. No kidding! When we arrived here in August, our first order of business was to find a place to live. Luckily, Toby’s supervisor had forwarded our housing application earlier in the summer, so we were already in the system. I’m learning that being “in the system” in NY is very important for everything! But more on that later.
We spent our first morning waiting at the IRE office, a shockingly modern outfit inside a stately, turn-of-the-century building. Unlike the students looking for housing, we were able to see an actual person, Marge, who directed us to 3 different apartments to look at. So off we trekked, through unknown streets of Morningside Heights.
The first was rather small, about 450 sq. ft. The kitchen was laughable – literally a closet. You step in and are face-to-face with the refrigerator. Turning 45 degrees to the left put you at the sink, and another 45-degree turn had you at the stove. A further 90-degree turn had you facing the doorway, and with one step, you were out of the kitchen. One needs to leave the kitchen to open either the fridge or the oven. Yikes!
The second had a wonderful living room with beautiful detailing on the walls and ceiling. The kitchen was bright and large (by NY standards, still smaller than ours was in Edmonton). Unfortunately, the superintendent acted as though we were sucking the life out of him by asking him to show us the place. He was thoroughly unpleasant, and we’d have been reluctant to ask for any maintenance had we been living there!
The third place is the furthest from campus (about a 10minute walk), and by far the best of the three places on our list. The “super” is a wonderfully chatty and upbeat woman who offered all sorts of information on living in NY and on which neighborhood places would be worthwhile going to. The apartment is the largest of the three as well, about 675 sq. ft. Much of the floor area, however, is hallway, and the kitchen is smaller than we’re comfortable with, but we’re adapting. Like all of the places we saw, the floors are hardwood, the walls are plaster, and the ceilings are 10 feet high! Our place faces Riverside Park, and through a gap in the trees, we can even see the Hudson River! I think that once the leaves fall, we’ll have river views all winter long! I love that each room has a window, and there is gorgeous moldings at the ceiling and the baseboards.
We hurried back to the IRE office and waited another hour or several before seeing Marge again. She ‘booked’ the apartment for us, but to officially claim the place, we needed to log into their website and submit a credit card number. No problem, we thought. There was even access in the waiting area of the IRE office! Unfortunately, the site wouldn’t accept the credit card number, claiming the address we entered was incorrect. How finicky was this check-system? Would we need to have the correct number of spaces in our typed-in address? Maybe it wouldn’t recognize a Canadian address? At any rate, the only way we were able to claim the apartment was to use Toby’s parents’ credit card. We felt as though we were 18-year-olds, moving out on our own for the first time in our lives, and needed our parents’ backing for everything! At least we got the apartment!
Later that day, we made an appointment to sign the lease for 9:30 the following morning. Off we went, that very humid, very hot Friday morning, back to the Office of Institutional Real Estate, only to wait for over an hour. (I wonder how long the wait would have been without an appointment?) We were escorted into the signing room with 8 other people, and went through a 20-minute form-signing session. Although I had to provide a photo to be allowed a set of keys, I am nowhere on the lease. As it turns out, I don’t exist here, in so many different ways! We finally got our key-release form finished, and headed back to our new home to meet with the super.
Our first night was a sleepless one. Given the 90% humidity and 90F temperatures, we lay in our empty apartment, sweating profusely and wishing for sleep! The following morning, we made our first purchase: an air conditioner! Probably the most expensive impulse buy we’ll ever make, but, boy, we have no regrets! We spent another two nights sleeping in the living room, underneath the air conditioner, until the entire apartment was cooled enough. Ahhhh…. The wonders of modern technology
We spent our first morning waiting at the IRE office, a shockingly modern outfit inside a stately, turn-of-the-century building. Unlike the students looking for housing, we were able to see an actual person, Marge, who directed us to 3 different apartments to look at. So off we trekked, through unknown streets of Morningside Heights.
The first was rather small, about 450 sq. ft. The kitchen was laughable – literally a closet. You step in and are face-to-face with the refrigerator. Turning 45 degrees to the left put you at the sink, and another 45-degree turn had you at the stove. A further 90-degree turn had you facing the doorway, and with one step, you were out of the kitchen. One needs to leave the kitchen to open either the fridge or the oven. Yikes!
The second had a wonderful living room with beautiful detailing on the walls and ceiling. The kitchen was bright and large (by NY standards, still smaller than ours was in Edmonton). Unfortunately, the superintendent acted as though we were sucking the life out of him by asking him to show us the place. He was thoroughly unpleasant, and we’d have been reluctant to ask for any maintenance had we been living there!
The third place is the furthest from campus (about a 10minute walk), and by far the best of the three places on our list. The “super” is a wonderfully chatty and upbeat woman who offered all sorts of information on living in NY and on which neighborhood places would be worthwhile going to. The apartment is the largest of the three as well, about 675 sq. ft. Much of the floor area, however, is hallway, and the kitchen is smaller than we’re comfortable with, but we’re adapting. Like all of the places we saw, the floors are hardwood, the walls are plaster, and the ceilings are 10 feet high! Our place faces Riverside Park, and through a gap in the trees, we can even see the Hudson River! I think that once the leaves fall, we’ll have river views all winter long! I love that each room has a window, and there is gorgeous moldings at the ceiling and the baseboards.
We hurried back to the IRE office and waited another hour or several before seeing Marge again. She ‘booked’ the apartment for us, but to officially claim the place, we needed to log into their website and submit a credit card number. No problem, we thought. There was even access in the waiting area of the IRE office! Unfortunately, the site wouldn’t accept the credit card number, claiming the address we entered was incorrect. How finicky was this check-system? Would we need to have the correct number of spaces in our typed-in address? Maybe it wouldn’t recognize a Canadian address? At any rate, the only way we were able to claim the apartment was to use Toby’s parents’ credit card. We felt as though we were 18-year-olds, moving out on our own for the first time in our lives, and needed our parents’ backing for everything! At least we got the apartment!
Later that day, we made an appointment to sign the lease for 9:30 the following morning. Off we went, that very humid, very hot Friday morning, back to the Office of Institutional Real Estate, only to wait for over an hour. (I wonder how long the wait would have been without an appointment?) We were escorted into the signing room with 8 other people, and went through a 20-minute form-signing session. Although I had to provide a photo to be allowed a set of keys, I am nowhere on the lease. As it turns out, I don’t exist here, in so many different ways! We finally got our key-release form finished, and headed back to our new home to meet with the super.
Our first night was a sleepless one. Given the 90% humidity and 90F temperatures, we lay in our empty apartment, sweating profusely and wishing for sleep! The following morning, we made our first purchase: an air conditioner! Probably the most expensive impulse buy we’ll ever make, but, boy, we have no regrets! We spent another two nights sleeping in the living room, underneath the air conditioner, until the entire apartment was cooled enough. Ahhhh…. The wonders of modern technology
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